Professor exhibits digital art at campus museum

By Erin Brodbeck
Collegian Editor
September 20, 2006

Toilet bowl brushes, mops and rolling pins might not fit in with everyone’s concept of fine art, but Sandra Camomile, an artist and DArt professor at La Salle, has been using household objects like these throughout her career to comment on gender roles in society.

Camomile’s past collections have featured tutus made of toilet bowl brushes, a crown constructed from hair curlers and a dress made of mops. According to Camomile, her art has aimed to “point out the dichotomy of girls wanting to grow up to be this pretty ballerina, but ending up cleaning a toilet with a brush.”

Camomile’s most recent effort, an exhibit entitled “Too Old Too Long,” will be showing at the La Salle Art Museum from Sept. 15 to Dec. 15. The collection consists of a series of digital images of a prehistoric sculpture called Venus of Willendorf in contemporary settings, a commentary on the controversial topic of women and aging.

“Women live with all these silly constraints. People say when you get to be a certain age, you can’t wear this, you can’t do that,” Camomile said. “These are issues that I like to sort of poke at.”

Camomile’s images come from her theory that although the body of a woman might be getting older, her mind is not.

“Women still want to play, but there are so many taboos,” Camomile said.

The images of Venus of Willendorf, an ancient sculpture that somewhat resembles an overweight, aging woman, show her participating in age-defying adventures such as parachuting, driving a convertible and wearing a thong.

“Concept is the most important aspect of the exhibit,” Camomile said. “I ignored a lot of the guidelines I teach in class because following them wasn’t really important here.”

As an interdisciplinary artist, Camomile experiments with studio art media like paint and sculpture, as well as the less traditional digital media.

“The difference between studio and digital art is that digital does not deal with light until you print it out,” Camomile said. “These images look like prints, but they feel like paintings to me.”

Camomile’s past exhibits have been diverse in theme and medium, yet they all tend to focus on gender issues.

As she says on her Web site, www.sandracamomile.com, “I deconstruct images of women as a vehicle to critique traditional female roles and cultural myths.”

Some of Camomile’s past collections have doubled as performance art, like her tutu of toilet bowl brushes, when worn by a performance artist. A giant rolling pin Camomile constructed has also been used in performance art, during an act in which a woman sprinkles flour on the floor and on nearby audience members.

Some of Camomile’s previous exhibitions have pointed out the minor inconveniences women inflict upon themselves for beauty’s sake. She made a board with fake fingernails tacked on with entomology pins and also fitted a performance artist in fingernails she made to connect to the performer’s toenails. These pieces are meant to point out the disabling effect many beauty products have, like acrylic nails and high heels.

“And we do it to ourselves,” Camomile said. “No one makes us wear any of this.”

On Oct. 5, Dede Young, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Neuberger Museum of Art at SUNY Purchase, will be speaking at the La Salle art museum about Camomile’s exhibit. Camomile herself will be giving a lecture in the near future about her exhibit, though a date has not yet been scheduled.

brodbecke1@lasalle.edu