The
Audrey Samsara ©2004

Running Time: 19:29
The Audrey Samsara is a meditative, slowly unfolding video
featuring the artist’s 18-month old daughter breastfeeding, falling
asleep, reawakening, breastfeeding and again falling into deep sleep.
This continual cycle brings to mind the notion of the life force, hence
the Buddhist word “Samsara,” meaning the cycle of death
and rebirth. Drawing inspiration from renaissance painting, The
Audrey Samsara echoes depictions of the Madonna and Child, as well
as the Pieta, yet it is not idealized nor sentimental. Intimate and
edgy, The Audrey Samsara captures the truth of the nursing
experience. Ironically, in May 2004, The Audrey Samsara was
censored from its first scheduled public exhibition at the New York
5th Avenue gallery of designer Salvatore Ferragamo, when a company executive
found the artwork "distasteful." It has since been exhibited
internationally.
Note: The Audrey Samsara was created in the widescreen, 16:9
format, and is designed to be show on a wall mounted, widescreen plasma
monitor sized from 40 to 60 inches diagonal, to approximate the look
of a painting, and to show the figures approximately life size. Large-scale
photographs, produced separately from the video, are also a part of
The Audrey Samsara series.
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