Artist Statement

As a digital artist, I use video performance and appropriated content to create work which illustrates the performative aspects of race, gender, and class focusing primarily on the performativity of White, upper-middle class women and the role we occupy historically and contemporarily as both oppressor and oppressed within American society. I draw my inspiration from an archive of historical and contemporary events recorded within newspaper articles, essays, books, news footage, television shows, and cellphone video recordings featuring White women leveraging their position of power as White people, while simultaneously gaining support and sympathy as women.

Through the creation of the character “Mother Mitochondria”, a caricature embodying the “pillars'' of White womanhood, I act in videos alongside found footage of White women performing in ways which flex their power over people of color while justifying these actions as acts of goodwill, intention, and vulnerability. “Mother Mitochondria'' speaks to the scientific concept that mitochondria (the energy center of a cell) can be traced genealogically back through the cells of females to the very first mitochondria, an idea I attach to the performative nature of White womanhood as being constructed, passed on, and reiterated through time. I examine this connection through gathering various media we consume, such as social media feeds and award show broadcasts, the fictionalized roles White women have inhabited, and how these roles are reflected in the actions of White women today. I layer different forms of video footage to present how White women continue to use aspects of a constructed identity to uphold White patriarchal ideology, historically leading to the control and suppression of people of color while also solidifying their position of power, and how viral consumption of these acts contributes to a sort of Internet celebrity status.

 

About Nicole

Nicole James utilizes video, digital software, and archival material to examine the performative acts of identity, content virality, and constructed fictions surrounding womanhood, whiteness, and the duality of occupying positions as oppressor and oppressed. She received her MFA from Florida State University (2022) and her BA in Media Studies and Studio Art from the University of Virginia (2017) which has heavily influenced her practice in both the relationship between Internet technology theory and identity creation through the moving image and viral video landscape. Her current work also stems from the sociopolitical implications of the ‘Unite the Right’ rally which took place in her then hometown, Charlottesville, VA during the August of 2017, and the revitalized movements surrounding white supremacy and white nationalism which have steadily continued growing in noise.

James has been awarded an Aunspaugh Fifth Year Fellowship (2017-2018) and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Graduate Fellowship (2019-2020) to further explore her work in digital media and video. In 2019, James was accepted into the Master’s in Fine Arts in Studio Art program at Florida State University. During her time at Florida State, she has worked in the Digital Fabrication Lab, allowing her to explore more advanced digital software and applications for her work, such as deepfake technology and 3D scanning and modeling. As a Graduate Teaching Assistant, she taught in the Foundations Program under Digital Foundations, specializing in the introductory course load to digital making and technology integration in art practice. Nicole is currently working with iDigBio of Florida State University to refine photogrammetric techniques to create 3D models of specimens in the field and adjuncts part-time in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Arts Foundations program teaching Time Studio courses.