Bio
Ana graduated from the OCADU Sculpture and Installation program in 2012 and currently works making video games in the Niagara Region. Outside of business hours, she continues to make art and is fascinated by the bridging of the virtual and physical worlds she inhabits, and explores this transitory space by means of 3D printing forms to be metal cast. Her work also cross-pollinates with her own experiences having transitioned gender, and grappling with the concept of femininity and womanhood, and what those virtual concepts mean when translated into daily life and her own experiences.
Artist Statement
Ritual is an exploration of building identity through fragments of repeated action. The pattern is a double star quilt block rendered in 3 dimensions and cast in aluminum. The tradition of quilting is a highly ritualistic act; a specific set of steps are followed and repeated to build an object of significance out of otherwise discarded fabric.
I first became fascinated with quilts as a concept when I underwent gender confirmation surgery. Before the surgery, I had expected that I would feel completeness, as if a major chapter in my transition had reached its conclusion. During my recovery, I felt relieved and happy and a whole host of positive feelings, but at the same time, there was a lack of finality. The occasion had come and gone and felt unmarked. I didn’t feel any more or less of a woman than I had before. I began to research coming-of-age and womanhood rituals and learned of the strong tradition in western history of women making quilts to mark milestones.
This work is one of a number of others titled Ritual, all using the language of quilting. Each work cements a small piece of my own ritual of becoming—taking the fragments of lived experience, combining them through a ritual of creating identity, and defining what womanhood and femininity mean to me.
