words like weeds, Videoinstallation, 06:57, HD video, 2021. The textual video work evolved through the process of merging the imagery of handwritten diary entries and sketches with a series of photographic portraits of the plants, reffered to as weeds. In the literary tradition, words and pages have often been compared to the spontaneous vegetation. For example, Whitman`s Leaves of grass or Paul Valéry‘s Cahiers which have been described as coming down to the page in the process similar to grazing of his own mind‘s meadow. Furthermore, the weeds themselves allude, as their French name mauvaise herbes suggests, the occurrence of those thoughts and feelings that are perceived as rather problematic, painful, useless, than useful, amazing, and beautiful. At its best, they are both at the same time. An inner monologue superimposing the imagery in form of its transcription is a leading thread of the work. Rhythm is created by the camera moving over the pages and the sound of the author typing on a computer keyboard.
Ambivalent growth, multi-parted photo series + text, dimensions and language variable 2019-2021. A collection of portrait photographs of plants that are spontaneously, hence successfully growing in the city. Paired with adjectives of contradictory connotations, plants that are taxonomically categorised as pioneer plants and mostly referred to as weeds, represent the idea of ambivalent growth, of some sort of inextricability, that might as well be understood as an understatement from/for all marginal, suppressed, ephemeral, disturbing, yet very much alive.
After Martha Wilson, A Portfolio of models, 8-parted series, Digital Photography + Text (Engl), framed with passpartout 40 x 60, 3+1AP, 2019. In the 1974 series „A Portfolio of Models,“ Martha Wilson explored her identity as an artist in terms of the politics of gender. She recreated six female role models: The Goddess, The Lesbian, The Houswife, The Working Girl, The Professional, The Earth Mother. Dressed up in front of the camera, she took photos in different poses, wrote a short commentary on each photo, and in the end realized that none of these role models really fit her. Piry appropriated Wilson‘s series through the experience of working as an artistic assistant to thereby reflect on her professional identity as a facilitator. Similar to Wilson, she applies the principle of dramaturgical analysis as a vehicle for depicting social interactions and summarises her experience in eight sequences. She portrays the selected roles by means of re-enacted gestures of the hands. The short enclosed texts are written in the first person and contribute something slightly humorous, at times self-iIronic. The structure of the series remains open, the titles of the individual role (images) are left out and can thus be applied to different fields of work. The motif of the helping hands, however, implies beyond that the social tradition of invisible work, which is still predominantly performed by women.
Sixteen drying racks, Artist book, 21 x 14.5 cm, 24pp., Engl., edition: 30, 2018. Documentation of the daily changing display of towels in the backyard of our house. On one occasion there was this woman in the backyard, checking the towels on the racks. We had a short conversation. "The boss insists: three towels for each client!" The costs for the laundry are on her...a sigh and a glance of a silky morning gown balancing the rack up the stairs towards Golden Phönix Studio. There, you can get a massage with a happy ending.
Reload Play
Lepota, Videoinstallation, silent video HD (16:9), 01:10 min, loop, 2015. Choreography for six letters. A short take on the sentence: lepota zatrepeta, slo. beauty trembles. Appropriation from an essay “Domov” by Ivan Cankar in which he writes enigmatically about a painter living in Vienna around 1910. In a melancholic tone, beauty is presented as a trembling ideal, as something fleeting, rare, temporary, perhaps even lost.
Inserts
temporary collages on a window screen, series of 11 photographs, 2014. By pasting forms made out of paper, adhesive tape, or found objects towards the window screen and capturing the arrangement in combination with the background of a certain place the train is just passing through, a narrative is created. Furthermore, collaging on a window screen and thereby rearranging the view alludes to the act of landscape painting and re-contextualizes this genre in an instant, ephemeral manner. Perhaps one more thing to do while you have time during an 8-hour ride.
Izštevanka / Counting rhyme, 13 oil paintings + sound intervention in public space, 2011. The project was realised as an exhibition inside the gallery and a sound intervention in public space in a small city of Ajdovšcina. In the gallery, paintings, recapturing landscape fragments as potential hiding places were hung, accompanied by a looped video projection of the author counting from 100 to 0. Outside, hidden in a passage between the park and the main square, a soundtrack was playing, in which the inhabitants are giving directions to their secret places. The idea of search and hide evokes an unparticular situation of searching for somebody or something while indirectly alluding some more complex events in the history of the region.
In Circles
chalk/asphalt, r 72, 2010
A commentary on a life situation in which everything is possible because the orientation coordinates are not certain or given. The observer is invited to step in the middle, position her/himself as the magnetic needle and rotate with the whole body until she/he wants.
With all due respect
Artist book, 9 pp., 2013, 9 instructions for performative re-enactments of various art-educational practices. Based on personal experience gained between 1988 and 2010.
Encouragement 1, 2, 3
animated readymade, rucksack, speakers, soundtrack (various lengths, looped), 2010. While finishing my studies I collected voice recordings of my colleagues expressing words of encouragement because that is what I wanted to take with me after we separate. Afterward, two more versions of the soundtrack, each for a particular exhibition and with a different group of people were made. Contributions are as various as their contributors.
Unconditional positive regard (Autumn)
paintings, oil/cotton, 120 x 100 each, 2019/2020
