ricecake press release

Michelle Dyk incorporated feather boas, black and white photographs, and resin-coated rice cakes into thirteen pieces currently displayed at Venture Theater. The show has a bright colorful pop-culture feel with a few quirks. The photographs don a fifties feel and feature girls hamming it up with junk food. They are placed on top of the rice cakes adding an element of contradiction between the quintessential "diet food" and the "junk food" in the photographs. Impressively, 39 rice cakes grace the stage of this art show, and flippantly draw the viewer into their feather-boa framed worlds of lips upon painted lips and mouths, all relating to women, consumption, and their self-image.
The show may be viewed at Venture Theater during theater hours. Venture Theatre is located at 2317 montana avenue, in historical downtown Billings. For times, visit www.venturetheatre.org, or call 406-591-9535.
The reception will be held during Artwalk, on August 5, 2005 from 5-8 pm.
Venture Theatre is committed to theatre as art and exists as a venue that will not only contribute to the cultural life of the community but will also serve to test and stretch the abilities of the artists involved with the theatre.

babydollricecake rough draft

This series has to do with feminine archetypes and consumption. ---that pop-culture advertising feel of a generated excitement, not quite real, yet engaging. The sugary sweet colors (bright pink, bright blue, and white) lend to that sensation. It has to do with the complexity of the relationship of women to the food they consume.
The ricecake is the "quintessential/stereotypical" diet food. The photos depicting girls with junk food contrasts with the bland tasteless dryness of the ricecakes.
Our society prizes physical beauty on a level almost akin to morality. Slenderness has become an enormous part of this, body fat becoming something that is seen as vulgar and unappetising. We consume images on a daily basis... moment to moment we are constantly taking in media of some sort, and those deemed beautiful by our society are very often the focus of these images. Whether it's an ad on television for hamburgers or a magazine featuring the latest gossip about stars, we are incessantly looking at and sizing up people according to their physical appearance. This is almost to be expected as we are very visual beings.
Consumption is a term that can be applied to the physical taking in of food, as well as what we feed our minds. Often, also women are put on a "platter" for visual consumption. In the case of these pieces the "platter" is the ricecake. It reflects the irony involved in trying so hard to be one way and appear another. They are expected to appear vibrant, healthy, beautiful and yet as thin as possible. It's a strange phenomenon that in a culture that is so rich in resources and food, we are obsessed with what we do and don't eat. The "bad foods" in the photographs are contrasted with the "diet food" they are placed upon. the photograph is an illusion, in more ways than one. We have come to accept photos as real, when in fact they are simply a flat representation of reality. The rice cake on the other hand, is a real rice cake. The girls in the photograph are feigning excitement. There is a flamboyant carefree air to the way in which they are posing with the food. Yet it is obviously posed and not "real."
There is the common saying, "we are what we eat." The crap we put ourselves through for eating what we eat is ridiculous. The thought about what we and how much is consuming us. It gets to the point where we are becoming consumed mentally with what we consume.

yeah a quote....yeah

For one human being to love another, that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation."
~ Ranier Marie Rilke

describing my art for the semester... a little redundant at the end...sorry.

Written Paper
Photography 411
Michelle Dyk


My art has been mostly comprised of photocopies this semester, with the exception of some liquid light work done on fabric.
The extremely tactile presence that photocopies offer, appeal immensely to me. Everyone has held a photocopy, even ripped one in half. They are able to be mass reproduced, and are also quite disposable, as is so much in our western culture. I feel that this base quality lends a certain unsentimental and tangible feel to my work. I present within the photocopies, images that intend to grip the viewer and engage them in a visual monologue of sorts.
At times the material is deeply personal, and I feel that this emotional aspect comes through in a manic sort of way, without coming across as overly sentimental gobbledygook. The hyped up drama colors of the paper combined with the flat unrefined feel of the copied image allow the viewer to consume the image from a certain vantage point, without becoming to personally involved.
I have a propensity toward the post modern, using blank parody, and graphically powerful imagery combined with a timeless quality and a schizophrenic element. I generally employ a strong composition, and bright colors to beguile and fascinate, and then let the imagery and content (juxtaposed with a fabulous title) accomplish the rest.

my artist's statement....

I don’t claim to know what art is, exactly. However, I find it best expressed in a quote by the French artist Robert Filliou. “L'art, c'est ce qui rend la vie plus intéressante que l'art". Or, en anglais, “Art is what makes life more interesting than art.” And that is the best definition I have yet to find, at least on a personal level. As an artist I brita-filter the world around me through the fabrication of art. Art gives me a voice and a platform on which to articulate whatsoever I may want to express even if that happens to be total baloney. In making art, I tend to prey on conventions , using the medium in such a way as to avail myself of the accepted principles in art, yet in an unconventional manner. I have a propensity toward the post modern, using blank parody, and graphically powerful imagery combined with a timeless quality and a schizophrenic element. I generally employ a strong composition, and bright colors to beguile and fascinate, and then let the imagery and content (juxtaposed with a fabulous title) accomplish the rest.
I never aim to patronize, per say, only tickle the fancy a bit, and furrow some brows, occasionally. My father says of my art, “you come back to it because it does not fit in the vast library of soundbyteimage stashed in millions of braincell lunchboxes for consumption and inevitable definition of cultural reality.”

And that’s all I have to say about that.