About the Artist
Born in East Canton, OH and raised in Williamsburg, VA, DC-based painter, printmaker, and fiber artist Tori Sprankle has been creating work for upwards of 10 years. She earned her BFA in Art & Visual Technology at George Mason University and had previously attended VCU School of Arts. Her work primarily focuses on queerness and the female experience: covering topics such as sexual assault, the fragmented quality of memory, and relationship dynamics. ‘Girlhood’ is her current project: an installation dedicated to her younger self. She has exhibited work at East City Art's Capital Art Book Fair, Small Press Expo, and Re/Wire at GMU where she won Second Place Juror’s award for her piece, “Truth Lies at the Bottom of a Well.”
Artist Statement
I treat painting like flipping through a box of old photographs. Mostly autobiographical, my work is a quilt of queerness, womanhood, memory, and solitude. My focus in on the cartography of the female experience – my experience. I reconstruct scenes from memory, sew them together, and cover them with a pink varnish. My work shouldn’t just be looked at – but touched, lived in, worn, and experienced.
I have often found myself focused on subjects with a quality of intimacy. Things rarely spoken about, but often reflected upon in our own consciousness. I spend my time creating an archive of my thoughts and memories, taking photos, or writing poetry. I catalog moments through collected scraps: receipts, wrappers, old tee shirts. I often feel like a historian when I work. An archivist, uncovering the mysteries of my own life.
Contact
@torisprankleart on instagram