SHERRI WOLFGANG
ARTIST STATEMENT
AMERICAN PATHOSMillennials were raised to strive for the best possible life, because that is what had been given to them — access to opportunity, and the emotional support they’d need to achieve it. Hovering family and friends laud their successes, listen to their complaints, and clear the paths of the obstacles and challenges that made their own experiences so trying. And yet, despite this foolproof, cushy narrative that was created for them, millennials struggle, leaving the generation that raised them wondering — what happened?
With the unrelenting exposure to news, social media, and the increasing societal pressures to “achieve” what their parents did amidst a completely different economy and culture, paralyzing anxiety and fear of the unknown future have taken root in their young minds. At the same time, they acknowledge and celebrate the diversity of their experiences, of race, sexual identity, economic status, religion. Those who have been lucky enough to be employed in a post-2008 economy watch out for their friends stuck in internships, in endless assistant-ships, behind the counter of their local coffee shop. While their situation is remarkably different from that of generations before them, they still struggle to obtain the future that was envisioned for them.
AMERICAN PATHOS attempts to capture the dark cloud of millennial doubt that constantly rears its head, even during periods of stability and satisfaction. Moments of joy, of togetherness, are counterbalanced by the age-old question, “Now what?” In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the social and emotional issues engendered by this juxtaposition become even more urgent. This is particularly evidenced in All The Young Dudes, which depicts five men, all but one of whose gazes avoid the viewer; on the table in front of them, the dark screens of their smartphones contrast against that day’s grim headlines. They do not quite know what the next step is, inviting uncertainty, melancholy, and desolation to descend as they try to figure it out. The series portraitizes millennials at that moment in time.
Click to read press:
American Art Collector feature / March 2023
With the unrelenting exposure to news, social media, and the increasing societal pressures to “achieve” what their parents did amidst a completely different economy and culture, paralyzing anxiety and fear of the unknown future have taken root in their young minds. At the same time, they acknowledge and celebrate the diversity of their experiences, of race, sexual identity, economic status, religion. Those who have been lucky enough to be employed in a post-2008 economy watch out for their friends stuck in internships, in endless assistant-ships, behind the counter of their local coffee shop. While their situation is remarkably different from that of generations before them, they still struggle to obtain the future that was envisioned for them.
AMERICAN PATHOS attempts to capture the dark cloud of millennial doubt that constantly rears its head, even during periods of stability and satisfaction. Moments of joy, of togetherness, are counterbalanced by the age-old question, “Now what?” In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the social and emotional issues engendered by this juxtaposition become even more urgent. This is particularly evidenced in All The Young Dudes, which depicts five men, all but one of whose gazes avoid the viewer; on the table in front of them, the dark screens of their smartphones contrast against that day’s grim headlines. They do not quite know what the next step is, inviting uncertainty, melancholy, and desolation to descend as they try to figure it out. The series portraitizes millennials at that moment in time.
Click to read press:
American Art Collector feature / March 2023
