Briana McCarthy
A LITTLE ABOUT ME
Biography
Briana McCarthy is a Michigan born and based visual artist. With a foundation in photography and painting, she continuously expands into new media. The use of natural materials, such as wood and dried plants, is an important aspect of her practice. She studied art at Central Michigan University and received her BAA in 2008. Within her work, she explores the human connection to nature as well as our relationships and interactions with control in daily life. Narrative and storytelling through fantastic imagery remain important, defining aspects of her work.
ABOUT MY PROCESS
My Work
I create work that often leans toward, or dives directly into, the surreal and fantastic, using a variety of mediums and processes. Experimentation plays a great role in my practice as I manipulate and combined materials in a way that allows them to contribute to the narrative. I believe that process and material should contribute to the themes and story of the artwork. The inclusion of natural materials and imagery is a defining quality in much of my work.
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Artist's Statement
A great deal of our time is spent trying to cope with the loss of, attain, or preserve control: control of our emotions, our bodies, our identities, our situations, and other people. It is an unresting struggle and even as we believe we are gaining control in one area, it is draining away from others. It’s a battle to hold on to it or let it go. Will we find pain or peace?
My work explores our relationship with control in our daily lives: how we cope when we have it, when we don’t, when we feel it slipping away, and when we don’t want it anymore. I use symbolism from folklore, as well as elements and imagery from nature, to guide those navigating the mythology I am building and to help them consider themselves in the narrative. By creating my own lore and pantheon of characters, I provide a familiar mechanism to examine our interactions with control and the rituals therein.
Presented across a variety of mediums, the stories of this world are revealed through painted rough wood slabs and canvas, a lightbox, the assemblage of leaves and plants, or through a melding of these practices and materials. My works are greatly figurative; some characters writhe, tangle, and build up in the scenes, while others are partially obscured, seemingly fading away. The materials and characters often directly interact. Where wood grain and texture show through, they merge with the overall scene, directing compositional flow and providing shape and depth to figures and the environment. The characters, asserting their own life and agency, alter the materials their stories play out on, further anchoring this lore to our known world.
Control plays some part in almost all of our experiences. Its threads run through our day to day as we work to weave it into something manageable or release its tension. My work is an exploration of that journey and all of its manifestations.