Gabrielle Victoria Meyerowitz

Gabrielle Victoria Meyerowitz

 AGE 33 

 FROM

I was born on American soil, however in a different context to the standard American culture. I only felt at “home” when I moved to France in my late teens.

 CURRENT

“Portable-studio” ie. [ VALISE ] . VALISE is an old suitcase I picked up from the streets while living in Paris in 2012. Since then, I have dubbed it my “portable-studio” and “home” and kept only the essential “tools” inside that act as this – allowing me to travel across many “foreign” lands, while still remaining grounded inside a space that is my own.

My method of translation of my human experience, or my “voice-box” includes; painting, poetry, and interactive elements, often using found objects. 

My current station: Bali

THIS IS THE STORY I WANT REWRITTEN FOR WOMEN 

SU means “under” 

RE means “back”

DE means “down”

OB means “against”

PRESS means “to strike” or “push”

When combined, these roots form the words suppression, repression, depression, and oppression. So much of what I see in women today – is related to these words. 

Of course, it is not specific to female-identifying individuals – this is an issue that extends past all genders – including non-binary – but it seems to affect anyone really that holds a view that does not fit the standard, western-propagated ideal.

This manifests as: pay-inequality. 

And labels such as “crazy”, “intense”, “emotional” and “selfish” behavior for those with a differing view. This results as shame, harassment, the loss of individual rights, voice-blocking, fear, and judgement. 

On the other-side, people who are viewed as “different” – are seen as circus-acts and “art-only”, “fake” and only to be viewed as stage-based fantasy- pseudo-reality – in order to be acceptable. 

Intuition, tactile instinct, gut-feelings, dreams, or anything that is “unseen” or cannot be tallied up into – or drawn from – a logical, binary, calculated formula – is seen as “irrelevant” and not to be trusted. 

This looks like voices being clipped, songs kept away, and Judgement instead of Justice is the head of the court. 

Reactions from those “outside the box” varies: I see many women comply and play their given role; I see others struggling to extend their voices beyond the societal-bindings they found themselves within.

But then, either because of fear or a sense of obligation they name as devotion – they follow protocol – only to find their creative expression stunted or modified in some way. Their voice becomes a commodity of a former self. 

This translates into many stories where the root is often pressure. 

This story exhausts me, angers and saddens me, scares me, breaks me. I look toward women’s stories because this is the body I was born into – and so this history is my own. 

I am very blessed to have been born into a family that never judged me, that accepted me despite any difference in opinion we shared, and truly loved me unconditionally. 

This is what I want for women today: “a room of one’s own” – to quote Virginia Woolf (another woman whose fluid sexual orientation had to remain hidden from the judgmental eyes of society) – or a held space in which women can breathe freely. 

I pray I can assist in any way possible through my “voice-box” and tools – my art in the world. 

THIS IS THE NEXT STORY I WANT TO WRITE FOR MYSELF 

As an “artist” (I prefer archeologist or translator) – what I express in my work is articulated because it is what I am seeking for myself. This is the ugly beauty and hypocrisy in an artist statement. It is the reason I can feel com-passion (“with passion”) towards those that experience their own version of this same story.

Through my work, I hope to offer a space where women can breathe and find peace from the shells they wear.  Story, myth and art hold immense power, as we can reach through to one another and bend our realities without being told what to do and without perceived judgement. 

For myself – I hope I have the courage (root : coeur – of the heart) to voice another way for women to exist.