ARTIST STATEMENT:

Christina Kerns's dreamlike vignettes are created with appropriated imagery and small props. Using a Technicolor palette that makes the scenarios seem more imaginary than real, the images are initially set up as dioramas. Kerns's jagged edges and deliberately messy composition mimic the rough way in which our memories are muddled together.
The images are culled from ideas and pictures we are bombarded with by mass media. Kerns' mash-ups reflect the way films, games, magazines, and advertisements influence our thoughts and dreams and mesh together to form a skewed reminiscence of one's past and of reality.
This work references the surreal and nostalgic sculptures of Joseph Cornell, the Dada collages of Hannah Hoch and the postmodern photographs of Laurie Simmons; all of these artists create work with appropriated imagery in order to express societal conventions. Kerns's work deals with stereotypes that permeate society--sexism, commercialism, prejudice - as well as the tragic nature of cliches. The unrefined, childlike and surprising methods of her constructions simultaneously poke fun at and pass judgment on the follies and foibles of our contemporary world.