User:ARTH3560pro/sandbox/Genevieve Gaignard

New article name goes here new article content ... Genevieve Gaignard Genevieve Gaignard (1981), born Orange, Massachusetts, is a mixed race female artist who specializes in photography, self-portraiture, and sculpture. Gaignard’s photographs explore the overlap of black and white American identities through staged environments and Character performances. Her work challenges stereotypes based on ethnicity, gender, and culture through ethnic representational installations and digital photographic mediums. She received a BA in photography at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2007 and an MFA at Yale University in 2014. Her work has been exhibited at The Cabin LA in Los Angeles, CA, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY, The California African American Museum, Los Angeles, formatedCA The Foley Gallery, New York, NY and two residentially owned gallery exhibitions in Los Angeles, CA. In addition, her work has also been featured in publications such as The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Gaignard’s photographic series is inspired by Carrie Mae Weems with similarities to Diane Arbus and Cindy formatted as the 21st-century selfie.

Biography

Early Life: Born and raised in a Massachusetts mill town to a white mother and black father, Gaignard grew up between black and white cultures. Before enrolling at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Gaignard first enrolled at Johnson and Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island in their baking and pastry program. It was not until a mentor relationship with one of her professors that she became interested in pursing the arts. The creative assignments given to Gaignard challenged her differently, unlocking new perspectives and reintroducing old mediums. Gaignard states, “I went through this phase where Abercrombie & Fitch was really cool, I would rip pages out of the catalog and collage my whole wall with naked guys.” Gaignard first began photographing her family and neighbors as she transitioned into the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She was given assignments such as “dealing with flesh” and began using her mother as a subject for her pieces. Following her graduation in 2007, she applied to Yale University where she was waitlisted. Her frustration with Yale pushed her into using video art, where she created offbeat films. Her time at Yale also challenged her to incorporate the intensity of race and storytelling in her work, “My expression as a person of color is different than others. I have something to say...The stuff I say now sort of addresses a lot of feelings I had as a child.” It was through her exploration of race and family relations that she began creating personas and installation pieces.

Work: Gaignard explores the topic of “passing” and gender to address the difficulties of being a mixed race woman in American society. While Gaignard’s work is said to be similar to Cindy Sherman and Carrie Mae Weems, she prefers not to be compared to them. Like Weems, Gaignard’s works focuses on black female bodies and their place within society. Gaignard’s digital photographs utilize pop culture references and selfie culture. She consistently challenges herself by questioning mass media and how it presents white and black culture by pushing the personifications and contrast in her fictitious characters. Gaignard blends her digital photography into installations involving characteristics of the ideal family home. She states “When I make an installation, I want it to be somewhere between a Wes Anderson film and Harmony Korine’s Gummo: gross and perfect at the same time but those are also super white references—so, that’s always my challenge.” Although contrast is important to her characters, Gaignard also focuses on blurring the lines between representations of black and white women by drawing on current and past pop culture references. By blending representations, stereotypes, and taking inspiration from drag culture, she further challenges beauty standard norms, while also showing others the “invisibility” she faced growing up. In one of her works, Smell the Roses, which consisted of both photography and installation with the use of multiple mediums. Gaignard 's exploration of different mediums as a way to interpret her identity and addressing the issues circulating race, gender, and current events. Gaignard states, "Just as I resist clean labels for what type of artist I'am..." and "By using a lot of different mediums, I'm not constrained by any of them. I'm allowed to explore as they feel useful and right. I can put one medium down and come back to it".