Jeff Way
Check out my new video “Transformations”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H51EiTK2pVY
Artist Statement
Masks were part of the American Indian culture that fascinated me as a child growing up in Southern
Ohio. I discovered masks again as a graduate student in art history studying African art. In 1975, after I left academia to become an artist, I made my first masks. The initial inspirations came from dreams. Once I developed a body of work, I felt the need use the masks in some kind of performance.
Performance was natural for me as my earliest experience in the arts was through dance, having studied as a child and agiain in college. This background, along with my strong interest in both the life and work of George Catlin, and shamanism, led to my conviction that artists are the descendents of tribal shamans-that is, those who transform spirit into matter. I began to experiment with wearing a d moving behind the masks in order to inhabit their character.
>From 1977 to 1991, I developed “Transformatiions”, a solo performance in which I shed layers of masks and costumes while moving to the sounds of bells, bones, rattles, haromica, and recorded music. The idea of transformation included both my experience of being transformed by the masks and the audience’s of watching someone become various personea. I performed from a wide range of audiences in a variety of venues, including the New Museum, the Whitney Museum 42nd street branch, the club, Danceteria, a public school in Brooklyn, a barn in Vermont, Chase Manhattan Plaza,
a shopping plaza in Poughkeepsie, NY and several college art galleries.