by Emily Rankin
Visual Art
Artist’s Statement
There’s something mesmerizing about tangles. Something frightening and comforting all at once about knowing something is so completely knotted-up that it will never be undone. I’ve always been interested in tangles and knots, in the ways in which dreaming and wakefulness, reality and dissociation, what is felt and what is expressed, become intertwined. To that end, my work explores liminal space and the ways in which we strive for connection with each other and within the tangled web of ourselves.
These pieces make up a part of an ongoing series, Disintegral, which focuses on the alienating effects of dissociative disorders, in which the sufferer feels fragmented, solipsistic, and unreal. Disintegral seeks to capture these fragmentary feelings through a series of pen and ink drawings.
Emily Rankin was born in Riverside, California, and attended university in Abilene, Texas, where she received a BFA in 2011. Her body of work ranges from graphic design and scenic painting to collaborative performances with Verstehen, an interactive series which incorporates live painting, sound, and electronics. She is currently based in New Mexico.