Done
- Monoprint
- 24 x 14 x 1.5 in
- $279
- Samira Gdisis
I have not always been a visual artist. If you’d asked the driven insecure wounded teenager who inspires my monoprints who she wanted to be, she’d have unequivocally told you that she would be a professional dancer, even if it killed her. Dance was a vehicle for expression and control in my life. I was a young, frightened, victimized young woman who just wanted a way out. To dance was freedom and discipline, hope and hardship, and it nearly killed me. This artwork shares that paradox anorexia and bulimia in my young life and my continued lifelong battle of eating disorders and depression. The long, lean printmaking plate of the dancer in “Confined Within” is a visual symbol of the illusion of control that an eating disorder gives. Like the dancer’s goal of fulfilling the vision of the choreographer. One is trapped in the ideas of others while desperately longing to escape.Dancers often perform to seek approval, perfect their quality of movement, and make the difficult look effortless to others. “Done” is my attempt to share the exhaustion of pretending to be ok when depression, grief, and trauma take over.Today visual art is my path to self-expression. I cannot imagine life without it. Art has given me the means to sort the feelings that once drove me to depression and harmful behaviors, a community to support me and great joy.
Bio:
Samira Gdisis is a printmaker, interdisciplinary artist, community builder, and curator from Racine, Wisconsin. She often wonders aloud, “who gets to do this?” as she opens her studio door. “Who gets to live a life of creativity in a community filled with colorful and creative human beings?” Samira’s art is sometimes fun and sometimes serious, often as a means of documenting life around her. Monoprint is one of several media that appeals to her desire for immediacy as she shares stories through visual art. Samira holds bachelor degrees in cognitive psychology, interdisciplinary art and printmaking with a minor in arts management at the undergraduate level. She also has earned a Master of Art in museum studies from the Johns Hopkins University. She has shown her artwork locally and regionally.
- Collections: Fragility and Fortitude