My work is an investigation into different social constructs and subcultures seen through backyard parties, dance clubs, music shows, hang-out spots, and art receptions. By exploring subculture through personal narrative and employing an eclectic mix of materials, I hope to disarm fixed hierarchical social and artistic constructs.
I am interested in documenting mundane social moments as a way to glorify everyday people who are often overlooked, yet whose existence is the embodiment and legacy of historical struggle. We are all interested in the process of creating and re-contextualizing culture by virtue of language, dress, and memory.
Visual signifiers drawing from fashion and place are constantly in flux, fluid in meaning yet rich in historical context. For this reason I gravitate towards portraiture as practice and process. Rather than depicting moments of cultural “diaspora,” I lean towards the idea of fragmentation within the self as being more of an evolving, fluid, and never-ending process.
Shizu Saldamando
Saldamando attended the University of California, Los Angeles, for her undergraduate work and received a Master of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts. Her works has been shown in recent solo exhibitions at Moore College of Art and Design and Steve Turner Contemporary and group exhibitions at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and the Chinese American Museum.
Website
http://www.shizusaldamando.com/
