In my work, the theme of skin and its impermanence has always been a constant — starting from the use of wax in painting, to create a textural body, which then emerged from the canvas to the elastic skin of a model I collaborated with and photographed for 7 years until his death. I am now continuing with these themes of impermanence while relating them to women’s issues regarding aging, “ideal beauty”, sexuality, eternal youth, and cosmetic surgery. I am also inspired by African sculpture, ritual objects and painting references.
For many years I was working with latex and vinyl in the form of sheet latex or fragments of Halloween masks — very tactile and sensuous mediums in which to convey impressions of skin and flesh. With these materials I was able to reference aging, deformities, discolorations, decay and exaggerated features as they are used to create the “horrific”.
I took a series of photos of boiling objects. The work was inspired by my finding a set of dentures on 25th street. I was boiling them to clean them and became fascinated with the bubbles, their movement, breath and how the objects got obscured by the energy of the bubbles. This gave them life while at the same time abstracting them.
— Janice Sloane
Galleries Illustration Photographs Sculpture