METAFORMIA! 

Blithe Ophelia Grey, MFA 2024, Painting

My research is deeply rooted in metaformic theory-- examining the human inclination towards the creation of spiritual devices and iconographies that both inform and respond to our material culture. Specifically, I am interested in how these behaviors are intrinsically tied to the advent of menstruation. In the primary moments of early human civilization, the emergence of menstruation led humans to construct distinct spaces; both figuratively, where metaphors were externalized and bloomed into cultural origins, and physically, within the menstrual seclusion rituals that punctuate early human histories.  

Within my interdisciplinary practice, I investigate the profound influence that thousands of years of these rituals have had on the human psyche. Using quilting techniques that engage alternative methods of story-telling and history-keeping, I point to the small, prismatic glimmers of the past in our contemporary rituals, religions, and everyday activities that mirror the menstrual cycle and the genesis of metaphor as metaform. Through the methodology of metaformic theory, my work deconstructs notions concerning the thresholds of reality and fiction, or the ancient and digital, and in turn, suggests the body as its own wellspring for knowledge, history, and spirituality. 

METAFORMIA! invites the viewer into an environment demarcated by quilted pop-up windows, blurring the line between physical and digital landscapes. As one navigates the space, plastic rainbow beads and pink faux-fur bindings become tools of view-finding, or of divination, to sift through the overwhelm of neon information. The character FAWN GIRL – who appears in several places in the space, ranging from 12 inches tall to 12 feet tall – stares on with her cartoon smile, leaving the viewer to contend with their own implication within the quasi-quilted-digital-space that asks you to play, to explore, and to decipher. Situating oneself between the massive wall of scrawled text and the monumental desktop-screen-quilt, the viewer might begin to wonder who the actual avatar within the space is—…you, or her?