TERRANCE GRAVEN
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ARTIST STATEMENT


​     I create installations incorporating sculptural elements, performance art, costumes, sound pieces, and theatrical lighting. I work with themes about the fragility of the body and the frailty of life. This committed exploration on these topics often makes me very apprehensive, but is the core and strength of my creative process.

     While creating and performing, I explore my intense anxieties about mortality and the universal experience of living precariously in a body made of flesh and bone. I confront my extreme fear of trauma and distress in the body by investigating human anatomy, death rituals, and the abject.

     Last, it is my intention to provide a stimulating space wherein viewers may freely contemplate mortality, loss, and the relationship to their bodies. My goal is not to appease and comfort, but rather to agitate and illuminate places that are usually left unexplored.

ART INSPIRATIONS

 
Victorian Mourning

  • Victorian mourning practices
  • Victorian hair wreaths & jewelry
  • Victorian silhouettes
  • Lachrymatory bottles & tear catchers
  • Victorian cemetery symbolism
Medical History

  • Antique medical equipment
  • Bubonic plague
  • Rat King folklore
  • Beak doctors
  • Antique rat trap cages
  • Antique medical illustrations
African Ritual Objects

  • African power figures, Bochio figures, or African fetish (nkisi, nikishi, minkisi; nkondi, minkondi, zinkondi)
  • African oracle figures (kafigeledjo)
  • African removable hair caps (etimat)
  • African masks and headdresses
  • African boli from Mali
  • African ritual encrustations
Religious Decor

  • Relics and Reliquaries
  • Sheesh Mahal or Shish Mahal
  • Religious icons
  • Votives, tamatas, milagros
Other

  • Abandoned and disintegrating buildings
  • Chandeliers
  • Mold fungus
  • Cave formations
  • Mummified bodies
  • Body Worlds
  • Japanese ghost and demon paintings (Yokai)
  • Cocoons
Jeweled Saints
Jeweled skeleton relic
Picture
African power figure
  • ABOUT
    • News
    • Artist Statement
    • Bio/C.V.
    • BLOG
    • Reading List
  • STORE
  • PORTFOLIO
    • INSTALLATIONS
    • PERFORMANCE ART
    • MIXED MEDIA
    • DRAWINGS & PAINTINGS >
      • O series
    • PHOTOGRAPHY
    • COLLABORATIONS
  • CONTACT