Slow Burn Exhibition, 2023

Artist’s Statement

 They like to say America is the great melting pot. It always makes me think of soup. Thick. Tasty. Nutritious. Filled to the brim with a strange assortment of edibles that somehow—through the magic of time, heat, and proximity—manage to meld together and make magic. Something truly greater than the sum of its parts.

My artistic interests lie in the ways things interact. The ways one element interacts with another. The ways they resonate and create an active space between/among them.

I am fascinated by the interplay of flavors…colors…textures. By the magic of sounds and silences, the variety, the sameness. By our ability to be one thing…two things…MANY things. All at the same time.

I am lucky to be the product of many ‘mixed’ relationships. Both my bi-racial birth and my multi-cultural life experiences have strengthened and expanded my awareness of our enculturated ideas of difference. We are trained to think of OTHERNESS as an insurmountable barrier to connection and understanding. A fortress constructed and upheld by the great lie that “never the twain shall meet.” (Kipling, n.d.)

My truth is that there is no ‘twain.’ No them. Only us. Only WE. The truth is that Americans were created by the meeting and mixing of “the twain.” We may not always like it, and we definitely don’t always bring our best selves, but we are all participants. Both cooks and ingredients in this soup.

And if—for me—America is a soup, an infinitely varied concoction to which we all bring our essential part, then what—I wonder-- is art? Perhaps a window. A reflection. A pondering.

I am exploring the multiplicity of our story-line. The parts played by layering and perspective. The resonance of echoes through time. I am reaching through the barrier that divides me from me and filling in the gaps in our understanding.

I have observations.

I have questions.

I make art.

April Maybee

2/11/2023