Callie coccia

MFA Painting

Acousmatic

As an artist, my top priority is always finding the funniest way to say something. I want the work to always be generating uncomfortable laughs. It explores my personal experiences with social norms surrounding the body, and investigates the notion of Camp and nostalgia in contemporary contexts. My soft paper “meat” sculptures directly relate to my experiences with relational space. I use the “meat” surfaces not only as a humorous reference to special-effect gore found in horror films, but also as a reversal of surface and interiority. It additionally acts as a camouflage-like texture to combine and confuse objects with images. Most of the work is about surface, and the trespass of the body beyond its own boundaries, whether it be through outrageous bloody setpieces, an explosion of acrylic stuffing beyond the boundary of stretched latex, or the disorientation of bloody severed fingers housed in a commercial display case. I am a soft-sculptor, painter, image-maker, researcher, archiver, and installation artist. I aim to create narrative environments and objects that represent dissonance in modern and postmodern cultural life.