
Wedding Portrait of Amy Pierce taken by Adrian BuckmasterCheck out his other portraits atwww.adrianbuckmaster.com
My Bio
Amy Pierce, an interdisciplinary artist, born in Yonkers, New York, integrates performance, installation, textile, sound, photography, videography, text, and audience engagement into her creative practice. Pierce’s research efforts span art, anthropology, sociology, psychology, history and women’s studies,as she explores the elasticity of what is perceived as “normal” behavior within the temporary boundaries created by ritual activities. Pierce has exhibited photography throughout the New York area, including the Brooklyn Museum and New York City's Museum of Sex. Her short film Maypole, was included in the Independent Feature Project’s, Buzzcuts short film screening series, in New York City. Recently, Pierce created and performed 12 Steps to Planning the Perfect Wedding as part of the Bad Feminists Readings, in conjunction with New York City's Fringe Festival. Pierce received a BFA in studio art from the University of Connecticut. She just completed her MFA in Intermedia and is currently a candidate for an Interdisciplinary PhD at the University of Maine.
Creative Statement
Creative Statement Subheading
My research is centered around the current climate of expected perfection in contemporary American wedding culture and how it affects the experience of an individual who decides to engage in the wedding process as a bride. I am particularly interested in the prevalence of a phenomenon, which I have coined as “perfection hysteria,” that often ensues as brides engage in a quest for perfection, striving to achieve the status of “perfect bride” and have a “perfect wedding.” The social transition to becoming a bride is shrouded with a mythology of transformation, which states that as one ascends into bride-hood they are transformed from ugly to beautiful, poor to rich and unknown to iconic. I focus on the iconography of the wedding dress, which serves as symbol of the valorization of this quest for perfection, which is feverishly propagated by the wedding industry and eagerly consumed and self- imposed by American brides. The wedding gown is so tied to body image that it becomes an extension of the bride and therefore her beauty, appropriateness, and perfect- ness are displayed through her choice of dress, how much the dress is worth, and most importantly how she fits into it. By reframing components of popular and often unquestioned rituals, I attempt to provoke the viewer to question the roles that society and self, play in constructing identity, and to rethink established conventions that are blindly transmitted and reinforced through ritual behavior.
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