Hollis McConkey

Encore!

A performance work that blends painting and video to create a final painted work through the enactment of physical labour, aggression, and femininity. Humour is utilized to embody both an artistic and athletic identity simultaneously.

“Encore! explores and combines my experiences as an artist and an athlete, where I mix and juxtapose aspects of aggression, femininity, progress, labour, masculinity, and performance. Growing up as a competitive swimmer, I learned that the competitive athletic community is an extremely intense and hyper-aggressive environment, saturated with covert biases; it becomes an incredibly isolating space as a result of the extreme dedication required. I have found in retrospect that my experience as a swimmer is not dissimilar from my experience as an artist; both communities are alienated from one another, and discussions about each field are almost nonexistent in both. This performance is a humorous approach to including each field in my work, 'performing' as both an athlete and an artist. I am extremely interested in the role gender plays in both artistic and athletic perceptions. In my experience as a female artist who is not a painter, my work is often received with skepticism. As a (chronically ill) swimmer my work ethic, physical ability, and disinterest in toxic competitive aggression was also met with doubt. Discussions of either sports or art within the opposite respective community casts a perceived attitude of irreverence over my work, with each community covertly discounting the other. In Encore! I aim to ask more questions than present answers; what is she doing? What are we supposed to think? Is this for athletes? Is this for artists? Does she think she’s better than sports? Does she think she’s better than painting? What is she saying? Is she saying it to me?”