MOLLIE McKINLEY STUDIO

STATEMENT

My multimedia work encompasses video, photography, performance, film, and installation. Existential mysteries and uncanny redemption are explored through an incorporation of Nordic and Greek myths, the cinematic, existential philosophy, neo-primitivism, abstract ritual, and shamanism.

 

Particularly in my most recent works (“Dark Spectrum,” “Existential Marina,” “Sun Threshold/Fire Magic”) I’m exploring and articulating the intersection of the mystical and the existential. Mysticism for me means the deep unknown of the cosmos interrupting and altering the human experience. My definition of existentialism encompasses an assertation of personal responsibility, of being fully present within each moment, of having complete freedom; simultaneously, acknowledging an ennui that responds to the limitations of individual consciousness. The work proposes iconoclastic methods of transcending these limitations. These opposites meet within action, within the element of the absurd, within a juxtaposition between humor and heaviness. Mischief, wonder, longing, love, mystery, and the spectrum of earthly struggle between light and darkness.