About Allana

Allana Clarke, born 1987, Trinidad, is an interdisciplinary artist working and living in Baltimore MD. She is currently an MFA candidate in the Mount Royal School of Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She has a BFA in photography from New Jersey City University. Via performance, video and sculpture Clarke explores ideas of hybridity, ambiguity and mutability in relation to power as experienced through colonial/post colonial ideologies and her transcultural experiences, being born on… more

Rope: A Performance

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  • Rope: A Perfromance
    Rope: A Perfromance
    2 hour performance piece. The performance score was a follows: one viewer is allowed to enter the room at a time. Before entering the room they are given instructions which read: 1. Enter room 2. Climb step 3. untie a knot 4. Take a picture 5. Exit room All of the images which now serve as a document of the performance were taken by the participant/viewer.
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  • Rope: A Performance
    Rope: A Performance
    2 hour performance piece. The performance score was a follows: one viewer is allowed to enter the room at a time. Before entering the room they are given instructions which read: 1. Enter room 2. Climb step 3. untie a knot 4. Take a picture 5. Exit room All of the images, which now serve as a document of the performance were taken by the participant/viewer.

Mixed media

  • Liminality
    Liminality
    3 channel video installation
  • Nose Straightener
    Nose Straightener
    This sculpture will straighten the bridge of my nose by gradually squeezing it. Growing up my mother would always insist that I pinch the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger to gradually straighten the bridge of my nose, to create a more "appealing" nose. I made this piece as a homage to that experience.
  • 300 pounds of plaster (detail)
    300 pounds of plaster (detail)
  • 300 pounds of plaster (detail)
    300 pounds of plaster (detail)
  • 300 pounds of plaster
    300 pounds of plaster
    cast of artists vagina with pubic hair pulled from the artists body embedded in a pedestal made of 300 pounds of plaster
  • Framing Frame
    Framing Frame
    poplar, birch

Diagram of the Gaze: After Jacques, Hal and other white boys

This piece was influenced by my reading of Hal Fosters essay 'Obscene, Abject, Traumatic', in which he critiqued Jacques Lacan's text ' The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis'. I was specifically interested in the Lacanian diagram of the Gaze. The Gaze:image/screen:The Subject of Representation. I was conceptually interested in investigating the subjects ability to tame the gaze, is this possible if the gaze predates the subject?
  • Diagram of the Gaze: After Jacques, Hal and other white boys
    Diagram of the Gaze: After Jacques, Hal and other white boys
    HD video projection

Performing Histories (Sugar)

In this performance for video I perform the repetitious action of applying then licking sugar off of my breasts. At once linking the history of sugar (as a cash crop) in the Caribbean and its relationship to my body and the many bodies that labored to produce it.
  • Performing Histories (Sugar)
    Performing Histories (Sugar)
    Performance for video

Weaving De/Construction

Using the same methods of applying extensions to the head (A net with black glue applied to the scalp then sewing the extensions to the head) but replacing my head with my genitals, I Create a link between this process of beautification I grew up experiencing and the absurdity of the action.
  • Weaving De/Construction
    Weaving De/Construction
    Still from video.

Body is the Ground of my Experience

HD video installation
  • Body is the Ground of my Experience
    Body is the Ground of my Experience
    installation view
  • Body is the Ground of my Experience
    Body is the Ground of my Experience
    Installation view

The Black Box Usurps the White Cube Usurps the Black Box

HD video installation
This installation is a reference to Gustave Courbets' painting The Origin of the Universe, also to Mickalene Thomas' appropriation of his work and where video as a medium intersects with Courbet and Thomas's approach to the bodies they depict intimately in their work.
  • The Black Box Usurps the White Cube Usurps the Black Box
    The Black Box Usurps the White Cube Usurps the Black Box
    HD video installation
  • Embedded video media on Vimeo

Intersections

House paint on panel
36inx60in
This painting combines the compositional aspects of the flag from Trinidad (where I was born) and the confederate flag.
  • Interestections
    Interestections
    House paint on panel