Shwanda Renee Corbett
student at R.I.T.
“My art is grounded in the belief in one
Universal Energy which runs through everything […] My works are the irrigation
veins of the Universal fluid. Through them ascend the ancestral sap, the
original beliefs, the primordial accumulations, the unconscious thoughts that
animate the world. There is no original past to redeem; there is the void, the
orphanhood, the unbaptized earth of the beginning, the time that from within
the earth looks upon us. There is above all the search for origin. (Ana
Mendieta, English translation in Jan Blocker. Where Is Ana Mendieta, Durham,
North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1999, p. 34)
The well-being of humanity is the main
focus of my work and how social issues affect it. On the surface, it appears to
be about the social problem, but the more it is revisited, the more it becomes
more about the person. I try to give humanity a face and an emotion. I believe
everything is connected. How we cope with the pressures of society varies with
each individual. What I present in my work could be the mask I use to hide the
true feelings, or it’s about whatever I’m hiding from the world.
My Business Practices class includes diverse approaches to visual art, and Shwanda is an exponent of that. Her work includes performance art and much more, and it is all part of her expressive nature to deal with some big questions of our existence on this planet and how we will get along.
