Patricia Schnall Gutierrez

In “Erased in the Wash” the task of doing laundry is once again referenced, as in previous pieces: “The Package Project” (2010) “2407- The House Inside My Head”(2011, RPM Project) and “Inheritance”(2013), and is yet another catharsis of personal memories. Based on a simple but tragic story about one woman’s bedroom encounter that she tried to forget as she washed the sheets, this piece challenges the common saying “It all comes out in the wash” to the many, not-so-forgotten experiences we can’t seem to let go of. In this case, two hundred feet of washing machine hose, carry sounds of whispers, water and audio abstractions as it cascades from above to a tangled mix below. Sounds and faint whispers invite the viewer to come closer to listen.

In “The Package Project”, chores familiar to women such as folding laundry, working pastry and wrapping packages, are universal and strike a chord with generations of women. The delicacy of the materials, in this case, tracing paper, beeswax and twine, create a tension between the fragility of the materials and the complexity of the concept they refer to.

During the initial stages of the project, groups of women volunteers helped wax, crumple, smooth, fold, tie and knot the packages; many times including personal notes wrapped inside. Since the project’s inception, its process was key to its interpretation. Ultimately, it became evident that the actual making of the packages and the interaction of the public should remain an integral part of the work. Men as well as women were invited, and an interactive performance element was added. As the one on one experience with the public provided a more intimate interaction between artist and participant, the notes became more personal. As the artist recreated a repetitive task, participants were asked to become aware of their thoughts, and to write one down on a small notepaper that in turn, was then tucked inside the package. Each finished package would then join the hundreds of others with no trace of personal identity. This cumulative energy evoked by the hundreds of participants whose touch and thoughts were contributed, remain the driving force that continues to generate this work.

Every year over 2 million female fetuses are aborted simply because they are female, millions more are killed or abandoned as infants. The United Nations estimates that over 200 million girls are now missing from the expected world population.

Although these statistics are mainly generated from India and China, this problem is worldwide and escapes no societies. This extreme injustice to the female gender holds its roots within overall discrimination held against adult women in populations everywhere.

In this piece, the artist has carefully chosen her materials once again to express her intent; in this case, plastic garbage bags, as a metaphor for the uterine membrane. The nature and repetition of the delicate translucent bags filled with pink fluid and hanging weightlessly, create a contrast of ethereal beauty to what otherwise should be seen as an appalling practice. The Artist imagines what might have been, if not for this mass elimination.

This piece is about life and loss through generations of childbearing women. In this installation, our most basic primordial mission as reproductive beings puts aside our hectic lifestyles, careers and relationships and reduces us to vessels whose primary responsibility is that of giving life. The installation consists of three simple components, (7) burlap sacks shaped ever so slightly as women’s mid-sections with protruding bellies, a long wooden drain, and the faint audio sound of dripping. Whether through menstruation, miscarriage or childbirth, these “women” privately contend with their physical bodies as females. Depending on the circumstances, this process may be burdening, joyous or devastating as life giving fluids fall to the drain below and the process humbles all of our preoccupations.

Materials associated with household chores and women are used to exaggerate this attractive yet ridiculous outfit.

Inheritance revisits the theme of women’s work. With the use of an antique washer wringer utilized as an image making machine, the artist once again uses herself as a model in repeated photographs or photocopies to address how the roles of women are still being defined.

In this series, the artist continues a study of self-portraits that she repeats over a fifteen year period.
She sits between two rooms in her house: bedroom and studio, symbolizing her conflicting passions in her life of family and art. Trying to tackle the perfect life of balancing family and career strikes a familiar chord with most women.