ARTISTS STATEMENT for We Art Greensboro 2020

In 2018, I began a series of small watercolor sketches made on pages from a worn out copy of Sigmund Freud’s ​Interpretation of Dreams​. The paintings were loose, exploratory, and based on stream of consciousness personal memories. Many of the paintings have been framed and displayed, but the first of these sketches, ​Sargasso​ (2018), has never been shown because it contains a flaw that I attempted to cover up - a smudge from the errant finger of my roommate who excitedly pointed* at my wet watercolor and, regrettably, got a bit too close.
As a response, ​Don’t Touch the Art​ (2019) was born. Both a catharsis, and a comforting return to my beloved sewing machine and fabric collection (which, helpfully, cannot be smeared), “Don’t Touch the Art,” is a snarky reminder and a forbidden invitation. Showing this series in a digital gallery during a global pandemic gives the work a new meaning, unpredictable at the time it was created, but never more appropriate in it’s new context.
In early March 2020, I remembered old smudged ​Sargasso​ and wanted to revisit the idea. Using painted paper from old projects and personal mementos, this collage series started as a new exploration process and quickly became a real-time documentation and reflection of my mindset as the world shifted into quarantine following the spread of Covid-19.
The series can be “read” in the following order starting in early March and ending in early April 2020: Sargasso 2,​ ​Scilla,​ ​Corvid,​ ​Crabula​, ​Jaja​.

*She thought it looked like a vagina.

BIO
Cassandra Liuzzo is a mixed-media artist, art educator, and the owner of Shelf Life Art & Supply Co., a new-and-used art supply store based in Greensboro, NC.
Driven by the inherent conflict creating new objects in a world that already has an abundance of ​things​, Cassandra has grown up to internalize her old Girl Scout maxim “Use Your Resources Wisely.” Many of Cassandra’s processes are based on inventing uses for old and found materials, often incorporating leftover bits of former projects, studies, and personal mementos.
Her works create an abstracted personal narrative, fondly referred to as “Indiscriminate Storytelling,” evoking absurdity, contradiction, and memories lost-and-found.

www.cassandraliuzzo.com
@thatsuss