a body in flight, but not in motion [A&C]

Stepping into a extensive square area, I am promptly struck by the monochrome adorning the partitions. The place is white, and the air conditioning blasts from the ceiling, sending a preliminary chill down my backbone. Then a second, and third, on and on, cascading—reverberating—through my entire body. Around the space, every single wall is decorated with a myriad of prints, each a person exhibiting a diverse illustration of geese. 

A knot forms in my throat as I sympathize with the geese, their necks contorted and knotted into seemingly senseless, nonsensical loops. I surprise if they are in soreness. 

I method just one of the illustrations or photos, captivated by the repetitive composition with every single print wired alongside one another to make a single big canvas, their agony multiplies—as does my pain, so as well my captivation. The geese stare at me, their eyes seeking into my enthralled kinds. I draw my hand to the piece, achieving as if to unwind their entangled necks, and then caress their beak with a mild You’ll be okay, but truly halting just prior to I make get hold of. The agony carries on.

The description informs me that this sort of a complex physique of perform was produced by a sophomore—one of my peers. My ft go gradually all around the space as I stare into just about every piece, each and every goose impression leaving me more stunned than the previous. I visualize them leaving their canvases, every 1 going for walks all around the vicinity of the place, their necks each and every tied all over on their own, squawking in discomfort. Me also. 

How could drawings of geese leave me so dumbfounded?

What is this? 

Dawson Phillips’ modern exhibition entitled Entanglement in the Listing Art Setting up utilized printwork and drawing in get to build a really inspirational system of get the job done relating to a one topic: geese. Phillips’ perform transforms a easy fowl into a complex system of operate that asks us to rethink our romance to gender norms and sexuality. The geese are drawn as an abstracted and fluid human body in black and white Phillips warps the neck into an intricate cacophony of shapes and swirls.There are some works displaying a one goose, some exhibiting many, and some exhibiting just two. The poster for the exhibition shows one right after a different wrapped close to themselves—wrapped about each and every other—necks interwoven and interlocked, taking up the full paper in a cacophony of tv static shaking and blurring into readable styles. One more operate displays a goose sitting in peace, but its neck cranes into a maze in which I reduce myself, and the goose loses its way. There is a function that demonstrates the geese abstracted by geometric shapes, as Philips takes advantage of detrimental and positive place to warp when the geese come into see. Another shows a human hand wrapping all-around a goose neck—bent by the venous hand, or caressed by the softly opened fingers liquid drips from its mouth.

According to Phillips, the geese provide “as phallic symbols, personifying the shortcomings of western constructions of masculinity and male sexuality.” By his work, he examines the “nebulous, contradictory, and at any time-shifting character of normative masculinity whilst providing a concrete illustration of its limitations.” As representations of the penis, this imagery is thoughtfully jarring, confronting the individuals directly with concepts so routinely solid aside. The constricting nature of the geese serve to remind us of the way in which our current norms of masculinity, gender, and sexuality in western society bind us, strangling us in a way comparable to the entanglements of the geese.

For Phillips, every single piece in the exhibition highlighted a distinct aspect of masculinity, asking how it influences our marriage with ourselves and the earth around us. Commencing with the constricting and contradictory character of gendered anticipations, he suggests the scope of his exhibition broadened with the addition of just about every new piece. Certainly, the get the job done seems to rework as each individual new piece comes into see. We are, in the starting, greeted by the imagery of these entangled geese, constricted and unfree. Little by little, even so, the geese seem to be to unwrap by themselves. By the conclude, we are greeted with the picture of two free of charge geese flying—one proper side up and the other upside down. Phillips offers us hope, telling us that these constricting norms want not be the way they are these days he makes it possible for us to consider new worlds in which we are free to fly. 

When requested about the inspiration at the rear of the work, Phillips answered that he was affected by birds and the natural earth. This past summertime, he interned at Flatbed Push in Austin, Texas, in which he figured out from printmakers and other artists in the studio. Experimenting with methods of intaglio and linocuts in addition to his Micron pen drawings, his oeuvre commenced to consider shape. About the concept of his function, Phillips took a lot of inspiration from his introductory gender and sexuality reports training course at Brown. He stated that the readings and assignments gave him a vocabulary to describe his frustrations with normative gender expectations. 

Other than currently being a illustration of the phallic, Philips spelled out that he utilized geese given that he has a passion for birding and can come across inspiration in each individual chook he sees. He suggests he has normally loved incorporating birds into his artwork, and he finds that birds can provide as a impressive symbol for lots of various concepts. In this series, Phillips particularly selected the Canada goose. Philips utilized the Canada goose since they are fairly ubiquitous, which can make them relatable to the viewer. In addition, Phillips finds that geese are flexible in the information they can communicate to the viewer. Canada geese are whole of contradictions. They look swish and approachable, but can be protecting and intense. This is represented in his function as a clean, gorgeous fowl is warped into a position that can make me wince. Phillips hoped to choose benefit of this range by incorporating it into a meaningful human body of perform. 

The get the job done took Phillips eight arduous but enlightening months. He had occur up with the notion this previous February, building the initially piece in a flurry of inspiration. He worked on the collection above the summer season, and concluded his final three items in the thirty day period foremost to his exhibition. Some of the artists that influenced him included Adrian Armstrong, Carlos Barberena, Doron Langberg, and Katarina Riesing. Each artist is effective in a distinctive medium—painting, sculpture, print—yet all confront the viewers with stark illustrations or photos of gender, political stigmatization, and sexuality in order to warp the way we see the globe and inquire us to reevaluate our normative ailments. 

For the time currently being, Phillips says he is finished with goose-similar get the job done. According to him, the exhibition gave him a ton of new tips on how to carry on pushing himself to specific similarly complicated strategies with his artwork. This semester he is using an introductory painting class, which he finds challenging but worthwhile, but that is what keeps him heading. He does not know what the future retains, but you can preserve up with his operate on Instagram @dawson__artwork. 

I, for just one, know that I will be flying to see whatever he releases upcoming.