FINNLEY J. KIRKMAN

LIVING, ASSISTED

September 24 - October 15 2022 | 718 Mateo St., Unit 5, Los Angeles, CA 90021

For years, I've been buried in work, drowning in emotional stress and languishing over meticulous scheduling details, not my own but another’s. The addition of technology means that we’re always available, but expectations haven’t caught up with the psyche’s need for healthy boundaries. The truth is that, I set aside my passions with the promise that I was working towards my own success, continuously following cosmic carrots. By serving the wants and desires of others, I became pulp, mechanical, a shadow of myself.

Burnout is often overlooked or seen as a weakness. This was a belief I upheld. I folded into a system that viewed time as a women's responsibility. This led to a lack of time to do meaningful activities that refueled my spirit. And thus, my needs, my wants, my spirit, were deprioritized.

As I existed on the back burner of my own life, the toll of having these cosmic carrots inch further and further out of reach became evident. I was sprinting to a finish line that someone else had drawn and moved every time I approached it--there was always more caring to do but for someone else, not myself.. 

But the intuitive mind is powerful—at my lowest moment I started again to doodle, to quilt, to paint; I saw a part of myself that had disappeared. Artmaking transformed into a cathartic experience, a rebirth within a death: Through creation, I reemerged. Using old to-do lists, pages from my calendar planner, synthetic hair, used birdcages from Craigslist and other recycled fibers and fabrics, I deconstructed my old life and quilted it, quite literally, into a new form. 

The work in Living, Assisted, is about finding my voice and reintroducing myself to myself. It is establishing a visual agreement as a manifesto with myself, to not let others hijack my time, my breath and life; to hold space for myself first then to others who return the favor. My approach to artmaking as a healing ritual generates self-reflection and reinvents the detritus from an old life into the materials of my new life. Living, Assisted is about taking control, and assisting myself first and then putting the oxygen mask on someone else. 

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Available works | Press Release | Press

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September 24 - October 15 2022

718 Mateo St., Unit 5, Los Angeles, CA 90021