Nadia Arioli
I GOT PREGNANT
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:This collage of overlapping papers is divided into two horizontally. The upper half of the image includes the black-and-white figure of a mermaid with upper-face and tail off the page. The mermaid lies over a white page with (illegible) black handwriting that resembles a diary entry. The lower half includes a teal bear face with eyes cut out and a beige page with a car and tree drawn on it in pink. The handwritten words “One (and a half) years into the pandemic” appear over this drawing on another piece of paper. The horizontal center of the image includes a white paper with rows of numbers like a receipt or ticker-tape and a fragment from a book page set on an orange slip of paper.
NOBODY TOLD ME HOW LONELY
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: This collage includes paint samples in shades of red and pink and a black-and-white photograph of a tree-lined street with a steep mountain nearby. This mountain suggests that the photograph shows the California coast. The background is a page from a book of poems with an animal drawn in pink and the words “Tucker told me how -onery” written down the page in black ink. Behind these words, readers will make out poems titled “The Adventures of Plum Tuoker,” “The Special Secret,” and “---the Wonderful House.” The page also includes a line drawn in pink ink and a flower drawn in black ink. Words from another poem (“The Mysterious Visitor”) are circled near the bottom of the page.
STUNNED TO SEE
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: This background is a dark teal that resembles card stock. It is covered with an orange cat face, a green leaf, and three fragments of book pages or stationary. The spaces between these additions are filled with small drawings of snowflakes, ornaments, or holly sprigs. The text on the book pages is deliberately illegible, but a small note with the handwritten words “stunn- / such / Then I / issue / together so” is visible. The words “stunn-,” “together,” and “so” are all circled in black ink.
Artist statement:
Living as AFAB, I have grown used to the idea of my body as not my own. It is for men, for consumption, for trauma, for disgusting, for bad. Then, my body became a home for someone else, namely, my son. And that was miraculous, but also strange. As my son grew in my womb, I tried to make sense of having / not having a body using trash I found. My son can use his environment to make a life, then so can I.