“Fun House” by Stephanie Cobb

LSU College of Art & Design MFA Thesis Exhibition Series

I was recently asked to photograph the installations of two LSU MFA students, Mary Ratcliff & Stephanie Cobb. Here are the images from “Fun House”, by Stephanie Cobb.

Artist Statement:

The expression “fun house” seems empathetic and joyful, but has potentially melancholy connotations. Fun houses are participatory. They allow guests to move freely through their colorful halls. At the same time, they do not organize guest’s experiences. Usually, we are thoughtful of all possible contingencies that make the world so unpredictable. We prefer certaintly to doubt and try to avoid risks. However, reason and order have limits. To feel alive, we must take risks. The connotation of the paintings in Fun House may imply either a sunny mood through tenderness between figures or a tense ambivalence that lingers in their expression. This hazy territory separating certainty and improbability gives room for an artist to construct ambiguity into narrative.

The paintings in Fun House function as representations of figures in personal and domestic environments. They are private moments made public and the subjects are closely tied to personal experiences. Only closeness between artist and model allows for intimacy in a portrait. The hope is to evoke with clarity our closeness, or our distance.

You can contact Stephanie Cobb by:

website: www.stephaniecobbart.com

email: stephaniecobbart@gmail.com

instagram: @stephmcobb