Look at me, see my art
A new art exhibit showcases Florida artists with disabilities
One of the newest sculptures inside Winter Park’s Crealdé School of Art is eye-catching — with body parts scattered atop a mirror. A slightly warped leg here. A torso there. A pile of feet that seem to have been traumatically separated from the original body.
But the story behind the artwork is even more interesting.
For the limbs weren’t simply imagined. They were personally cast and molded from the body of the artist — a professor at the University of North Florida who lives with a disease called osteogenesis imperfecta that makes her bones brittle and easily breakable.
“It means that, if there’s a little imperfection on the floor, I would break my foot,” explained artist Dimelza Broche.
It’s the same condition Samuel L Jackson had in the M. Night Shyamalan movie Unbreakable. Except for Broche, this is real life. She has broken many bones in many parts of her body; the first when she was around 1. Sometimes, she didn’t even know how.
So on one level, the sculpture is something of a surreal self-portrait — with pieces of Broche’s own body shattered and split in different directions.
But the art, with glamorous accents of pearls and seafoam, is also meant to send a message — that this body, as unusual as it may appear, is still beautiful.
That is, in fact, the message Broche was trying to send to herself.
“I wanted to confront my disability, my own fears about body image; that I look different because I have sat in a wheelchair for
many years,” she said. “I wanted to take my body — a disabled body — and make it beautiful.”
So Broche titled the piece “Reinventing Venus/ Rebirth of Venus.”
It is one of the pieces featured in what struck me as an inspired show called: “As I Am: An Exhibition Showcasing Florida-Based Artists With Disabilities.”
One artist who has ALS paints with her feet. Others create their art from wheelchairs. Yet another has autism.
Hope McMath, the guest curator who helped put the show together, said she wanted to showcase artists and voices “that have often been left out.”
“‘As I am’ seems like such a simple statement. But it’s not,” she said. “The world is not accepting and embracing of all people.”
Ideally, patrons will study each piece, see what
they take away from it — and then go read the biography of the artist to learn more about their disability.
“I would hope people would take in the art, read about the artist and then go back to the art and say: Ah, there are things that mean something I didn’t realize before,” McMath said. “That’s what enlightenment looks like.”
The art world, like many other institutions, has long been dominated by able-bodied white men. Think back to the artists you learned about in grade school.
“We know Michelango and Van Gogh,” McMath said. “And I love Van Gogh, but throughout history, we have had women of color, queer artists and others who haven’t had the same opportunities.”
I’d argue that people with disabilities have been particularly overlooked — not just in art, but in life. Many of people are simply uncomfortable around those who are different.
That’s part of what attracted Broche to this show in Winter Park. It invites gallery-goers to look long and hard at both the artists and the art.
Some of Broche’s work is featured with a stool nearby, inviting observers to sit down and take in the art. Why? “I wanted to bring people down to my level,” she said of he wheelchair. “I want them to see things the way I see them.”
And she placed Reinventing Venus atop a mirror so that viewers could see their own reflections and expressions as they take in her work.
Broche, after all, has noticed funny looks and averted gazes when people first see her. She has always appreciated the children who unabashedly just ask her why her body is different. She’d rather discuss the issue than talk around it, saying: “That’s how we are going to teach future generations to be more accepting.”
McMath called Broche courageous, saying: “She’s inviting the gaze. She’s saying: I want you to look at me, inside and out. That’s a very vulnerable place to put yourself.”
That’s true. But Broche, a 31-year-old Cuban native who moved to Florida when she was 16, said she benefited as well by literally exposing herself — including a mold of her nude torso — to the rest of the world.
“It actually helped me so much. It helped with my self-image, my confidence,” she said. ““This is me looking at my body and accepting it and being happy with it.”
For more information on the show, which runs through Jan. 24, visit crealde.org.