The Train
Location
FA-203
Start Date
1-5-2026 9:40 AM
Department
Art + Design
Abstract
As a multimedia artist, I combine and distort imagery, objects, and materials to explore a feeling of distance from the present. I’m inspired by dreams and horror movies because of their ability to make abstract anxieties vivid and tangible. I also value playfulness and am interested in how humor and horror overlap. In my work I use surreal imagery to express a sense of disassociation. I’ve struggled with this feeling for much of my life, both interpersonally and more broadly. It’s difficult to feel present in a world where the technological, systematic, and political forces that govern our lives are so viciously out of touch with them. This disconnection often feels like a retreat into my own head. I use my work to instead give the feeling a physical form that can exist in front of me. In this installation, I explore this sense of detachment and provide a space to sit in it. I accomplish this by blending aspects of a home and a subway car to create a setting that is familiar yet incongruous, liminal and untethering like a dream. The train represents distance from reality as it is a place that exists in between actual destinations. Though surrounded by people, your identity is insignificant. Your mind can wander, reflect, or shut off. I use references to the home to embrace these associations, finding a home in their persistence rather than unease. Odd mixed media figures populate the scene. Their distorted proportions convey the discomfort of feeling out of place. The results, landing somewhere between silly and uncanny, are appropriate for this awkwardness which can be both absurd and unnerving. I use the absence or obscuring of faces, features, and limbs to communicate feelings of disconnect and anonymity. The strangeness of these passengers invites the viewer to briefly surrender to feelings of alienation and exist in this in-between place.
Faculty Sponsor
Nate Mathews
The Train
FA-203
As a multimedia artist, I combine and distort imagery, objects, and materials to explore a feeling of distance from the present. I’m inspired by dreams and horror movies because of their ability to make abstract anxieties vivid and tangible. I also value playfulness and am interested in how humor and horror overlap. In my work I use surreal imagery to express a sense of disassociation. I’ve struggled with this feeling for much of my life, both interpersonally and more broadly. It’s difficult to feel present in a world where the technological, systematic, and political forces that govern our lives are so viciously out of touch with them. This disconnection often feels like a retreat into my own head. I use my work to instead give the feeling a physical form that can exist in front of me. In this installation, I explore this sense of detachment and provide a space to sit in it. I accomplish this by blending aspects of a home and a subway car to create a setting that is familiar yet incongruous, liminal and untethering like a dream. The train represents distance from reality as it is a place that exists in between actual destinations. Though surrounded by people, your identity is insignificant. Your mind can wander, reflect, or shut off. I use references to the home to embrace these associations, finding a home in their persistence rather than unease. Odd mixed media figures populate the scene. Their distorted proportions convey the discomfort of feeling out of place. The results, landing somewhere between silly and uncanny, are appropriate for this awkwardness which can be both absurd and unnerving. I use the absence or obscuring of faces, features, and limbs to communicate feelings of disconnect and anonymity. The strangeness of these passengers invites the viewer to briefly surrender to feelings of alienation and exist in this in-between place.