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DO YOU READ ME?

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One Step at a Time:  Styrofoam/Plaster/Found Objects/Collage/Acrylic, 13” x 19” x 7”, 2002.

This book piece is intended to thrust the spectator into a nostalgic awareness of innocent childhood games and the reality of existence---broken bones, accidents, injury, wounds, and healing. The use of the rusted antique skate and the anatomical foot relates directly to the idea of a step taken, perhaps in the right direction, or perhaps a slip and fall.  The conflict arises with the adult labels that are seemingly applied to the young girl (virginal, vaginal, literal, clitoral, marginal).  Somehow, it seems wrong.  Innocence versus experience.  Both necessary.  Both circular.

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Baby Book            Styrofoam/Plaster/Found Objects/Collage/Acrylic          19” x 25” x 10”          2008

Using the book form as an anchor for some of her work, Janet Davidson-Hues continues to examine the book as a repository of culture, memory, and narrative, containing metaphorical weight and meaning and standing for devotion to education and a certain authority, which she is at once embracing and challenging.  On one hand, the book and language speak of male dominance and on the other hand, the book serves as a metaphor for woman, something to be read, to be bought and sold, to be held, to be taken to bed.

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Pardon My French:  Styrofoam/Plaster/Found Objects/Collage/Acrylic, 19” x 25” x10”, 2008.

Davidson-Hues chose a nonfunctional book form on which to make public her thoughts about women's place and plight, turning language inside out and wringing it so as to force out whatever meaning she could. The work became highly literal, poetic, cliché-laden, paradoxical, loaded with word play, and began to suffer from information overload.  She moved toward economy, using actual altered books rather than book forms.  She ripped out the pages, eliminating all knowledge, information, and narrative, rendering the books useless and impotent vessels, forcing viewers to fill in the blanks.

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Silent Shoe      2002      Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Found Object    13" x 19"x 10

When women walk quietly so as to remain unseen and unheard, it's the same thing as their voices being silenced.  This piece is quiet and empty and hopeful that a viewer will provide the quote written by a ghost writer (as in anonymous was a woman).

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Daniela     2004    Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage/Found Object     13" x 21" x 8"

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Woman with Three Birds       2006        Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage/Found Objects      13" x 19" x 9"

The intrinsic contradiction in the book as a symbol is at the heart of the artist's words, which are structured as scripts of behavior and confront irreverence, anonymity, contradiction, and misinterpretation. Articulated in a singular voice seeking to express the realities of existence as she sees them, her work defines the female experience as a fusion between outward awareness and internal perception.

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Aquaphobe      2006      Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage       13"x19" x4"

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Comings and Goings     2006      Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage    !3" x 19" x 4"

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A       2005      Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage/Found Object        13" x 19" x 4"

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Eyeball     2005     Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage/Found Object    13" x 19" x 4"

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X-Factor     2005    Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage/Found Object   13" x 19' x 4"

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81     2005     Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage    13" x 19" x 4"

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Swell        2005       Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage         13" x 19" x 4"

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Rave Review       2005       Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage/Found Object         13" x 19" x 4"

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Woman from Oregon          2005       Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage/Found Object        13" x 19" x 4"
4-

Keep an Ear Out     2004     Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage/Found Object  9" x 13" x 3"

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Divine Intervention    2005     Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage/Found Object    9" x 13" x 5"

3-

Woman with Sky        2005      Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage//Found Object        9" x 13" x 5"

2-

Afterthought        2006      Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage//Found Object        8.5" x 12" x 3.5"

1

J & B           2005         Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage         9" x 13" x 3"

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Woman with Bird        2005      Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage//Found Object        9" x 13" x 6"

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Palindrome          2006        Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage//Found Object         9" x 13" x 5"

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Chopstix         2005        Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage//Found Object         9" x 13" x 8"

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Mother Tongue        2006      Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage       9" x 13" x 3"

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Can You Read Me?        2006      Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage//Found Object        9" x 13" x 4"

Girl with Bird.jpg

Girl with Bird        2006      Acrylic/Styrofoam/Plaster/Collage//Found Object        9" x 13" x 5"

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