Artist Statement

Ten years ago I was trapped inside a burning car; each second still etched in my memory. I nearly lost my right arm due to burns that destroyed tissue down to the bone on my shoulder, while my back and most of my right side were subsequently heavily grafted. And I have been transformed.  I now see fire as a gift, bestowed upon me, allowing me to move through the world in a child’s reverie; excited, poised, and hopeful to what is around the corner at every moment.

I love the idea of sharing myself and connecting to others through art.  Self portraits allow me to explore and express my most intimate thoughts and emotions.  The experience becomes physical - it's as if I'm extracting something from deep inside myself, giving it form and color, encouraging it to take on it's own life.  I feel like I'm sharing my secrets, and though I am a private person, I feel safe to be open, vulnerable, and honest in the arena that art inhabits.  It's a place where healing unfolds and love is bigger. It's where I feel most alive.  My hope is that my artwork will be a vehicle for others to feel inspired, comforted, seen and touched.

In my work, the pieces that express my fears and uncertainty are almost always cloaked in humor. In The Gift of Fire print series, I use familiar images of beauty from movie and war posters. Normally, it would seem the woman in the posters is being objectified, but the unexpected presence of disfigurement causes the viewer to pause. How can this woman be smiling? How does a person move beyond pity and judgment? What is beauty? The process of this questioning becomes a uniting force - showing us the fragility of our ideals as humans, and the possibilities that arise when we begin to accept our imperfections.

The woman in the photograph is smiling, laughing, brave. She is joyful. She is a Super Hero, a Blonde Bombshell, a Hollywood Film Secret Agent, a Woman. She is not weighted down by the constraints that society would place upon her. She no longer needs to behave. She has found her freedom. It is the freedom of being more than just her body, of transcending the limitations of the body, that gives the portrait her smile and her strength.

The posters take root in my desire to not be separate, to rebelliously find a place for myself to stand. They are my desire to show that beauty still exists. They are a defiance in knowing that I still belong. They are the hope of being triumphant over judgment. They are my search for being comfortable in my body, and the realization that I am not my body.

Allison Massari