Anna Chupa
Associate Professor
Department of Art, Architecture and Design
Lehigh University
11 E Packer Ave
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA 18015
(610) 758-3718
I work with complex patterns derived from my photographic documentation of vernacular shrines as well as established pilgrimage sites. Details from garden grottos, roadside altars, feasts, wunderkammer and the work of other artists inform my process of constructing and photographing my own altars. I photograph altar imagery on location, mostly in New Orleans where I have also documented the Mardi Gras Indian suits and "masking Indian" on St. Joseph's night. I share a predilection for dense surfaces and visual overload that I observe in the beaded suits, Vodun altars and the St. Joseph tables I have visited. Photomontage forms a base from which I create complex kaleidoscopic patterns that invoke entoptic forms, or phosphemes, existing within the eye and brain as mandala like structures. The resulting surface designs employ a horror vaccui aesthetic, with densely layered pattern, juxtaposition, compressed or ambiguous space, and minute textural detail. Multiple pattern iterations function as a cipher for a specific idiosyncratic moment, a window to revisit an experience while extending it to plastic form.
In my most recent installation, Nou La, I used original post-Katrina photography "as is" together with the food and statuary seen in St. Joseph’s day altars, African–American New Orleans Spiritual Churches where Black Hawk is central, and Vodun altars. To these I added recently created montages. Montages in the installation (Expedite, Oya, Obatala, St. Lucy, Erzulie Dantor) invoke intercession in the protection against hurricanes (Oya, Dantor), protection for children (Ghede), and calm in the midst of chaos (Obatala), action on behalf of those least empowered (Expedite), and protection for the poor (St. Lucy).