Details:
① Artwork:
Them Guts
In this mixed media work on canvas, the artist dissects her identity as a Black, disabled woman through a blend of playful imagery and grotesque forms. The surface of the composition is richly layered, both demanding attention while refusing any simple or reductive legibility. This painting channels the complexity of the artist’s identity through bold colors, sly references to art history, fractured patterns and overflowing viscera.
Dugger wrote in a recent essay: “It’s easy to be overlooked when you don’t have a seat at the table, but thankfully I always bring my own chair. As a disabled Black woman, I have a desire for people to accept or appreciate me for both my surface and what’s below it; to humanize me not because of my appearance, but despite it.”
Ambivalence is a core theme in Dugger’s work. The artist's figures exist on the border of abstraction and representation. Neither utopian nor dystopian, the artist's compositions feature bodies that simply refuse to be contained. Dugger's work evokes nostalgia for girlhood, while also imaging possible futures.
Specs:
③ Artist:
In her work, Victoria Dugger explores novel modes of self-expression and embodiment. Encompassing painting, mixed media and sculpture, the artist’s practice blurs accepted categories. Dugger’s playful compositions employ grotesque imagery to dissect the artist’s identity as a Black, disabled woman.
BIO:
Victoria Dugger was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1991. The artist received a BFA in Studio Art from Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia.
Solo exhibitions of Dugger’s work include: Out of Body at Sargent’s Daughters in New York City (2021); Mind the Body at Lyndon House Arts Center in Athens, Georgia (2017); and Saccharine at Container Gallery at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia (2015); among others.
Group exhibitions that have shown Dugger’s work include: The Summer Invitational at Swan Coach House Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia (2021); My Flannel Knickers at Sargent’s Daughters in New York City (2020); Look Back At It at Bridge Gallery in Athens, Georgia (2019); Juried Exhibition at MINT Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia (2019); Annual Juried Exhibition at Abernathy Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia (2018); Annual Juried Exhibition at Athens Institute of Contemporary Art in Athens, Georgia (2017); Second Severn Crossing at Hathaway Contemporary Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia (2017); Personal is Political at Non-Fiction Gallery in Savannah, Georgia (2017); Nasty Women Exhibition at The Knockdown Center in Queens, New York (2017); the traveling exhibition of (RE) Invention, VSA Emerging Young Artists at Rochester Institute of Technology and the Joseph and Helen Dyer Arts Center in Rochester, New York; The Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tennessee; The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C.; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Scottsdale, Arizona; The Rayburn Hall at Capitol Hill in Washington D.C.; Volkswagen Headquarters at Herndon, Virginia; and The Dedalus Foundation in Brooklyn, New York (2016-17); We ART Here at 709 Penn Gallery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (2016); and LadyFest Atlanta 2016 at Murmur Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia (2016).
Dugger’s work has been reviewed in New American Paintings South Edition, Burnaway Digital Magazine, ARTNews, Artnet, Hyperallergic and Whitehot Magazine.
Dugger lives and works in Athens, Georgia.
In this work, the artist dissects her identity as a Black, disabled woman through a blend of playful imagery and grotesque forms. The surface of the composition is richly layered, both demanding attention while refusing any simple or reductive legibility.More
- Unframed
- Signed
