Statement

Sarah Umles explores how social/cultural identity and self-knowing are constructed through our relationships with material culture, visual media, nature, and technology. Umles’s artistic outlook toggles between a child-like fascination with the world and a sobering interrogation of the larger systems of oppression we function within on a daily basis—namely: the patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy, and anthropocentrism. With a background in creative writing as well as visual art, language is essential to Umles’s practice. Words—their shapes, sounds, and multitudinous meanings—become pieces of poetic armature; structural foundations for the visual components of her work. Using found images, screenshots, and readymade sculptures in addition to performance, photography, and sound/video elements, Umles examines how our mediated experiences inform (and deform) our senses of self and our understandings of the world around us. Umles is drawn to the unexpected moments of absurdity that we stumble upon in our technology-laden lives, particularly when the digital tools we’re so heavily reliant upon inevitably falter or fail us entirely. Her work often stems from the “algorithmic oddities, accidental abstractions, glitches, and slippages that occur in the built environments we inhabit every day.” A delicately crafted tension between humor and criticality is what lends poignancy to Umles’s work.

2024