EVIDENCE OF AGING. New work by Marydorsey Wanless opens in Gallery 115.

EVIDENCE OF AGING
New work by Marydorsey Wanless
February 17 - March 18, 2011

About Marydorsey Wanless:
Marydorsey Wanless is an artist and educator living in Topeka, Kansas. She is an assistant professor in photography at Washburn University Art Department, where she has taught since 1998. She works in all types of photography, including black/white darkroom and digital, but specializes in historical alternative processes. She is currently working with tintypes and gum bichromates.

Her work has won many awards and has been shown regionally, nationally and internationally, including the Grand Prize for SoHo Gallery’s “Krappy Kamera” International Exhibition. She is a member of Society of Photographic Educators, Women in Photography International, and the F295 Group of Alternative Photography.

BS Art Education, University of Missouri Columbia, 1971
MA Interior Design, University of Missouri Columbia, 1973
MFA Photography, Kansas State University, Manhattan, 2009

Artist Statement:

My work is about aging. My imagery uses the human body, our place of existence, to document the process. "Aging" is the accumulation of changes in an organism or object over time. In humans, it refers to physical, psychological and social changes.

In the United States more than any other country, we "baby boomers" refuse to grow old. We are a generation of youth, Pepsi, Mustang convertibles, mini skirts, and the Beatles. We make changes with plastic surgery, facelifts, body lifts, lipo-suction, silicone, chemical skin sanding, Botox, makeup, hormones, etc; but these can only prolong the inevitable. We are afraid to grow old; we are not at peace with ourselves. We are not accepting of our own bodies as they mature and begin to decay. We have an actual crisis in looking at ourselves.

This work is an exploration of my aging. In making images of my aging body, I was forced to look at myself, and as a result, I am embracing the process through which my body is passing. I as a viewer am also able to rethink the experience of aging through this body of work.

Images of the exhibition in Gallery 115: