Artist's StatementDimelza Broche is a Cuban artist based in Jacksonville, Florida. She attended the Leopoldo Romanach Academy of Art in Santa Clara, Cuba, and earned a BFA with concentrations in painting, drawing, and printmaking from the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL. In 2019, Broche received an MFA in Visual Studies from the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Arts and was awarded a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship. She has exhibited her work at Manifest Gallery, Marcia Wood, Era Contemporary, The Cummer Museum of Arts & Gardens, and the S. Dillon Ripley Center in Washington, DC. Broche was the Grand Prize recipient of Momentum: A National Juried Exhibit for Emerging Artists with Disabilities, as well as the recipient for a Wilson Center Graduate Research Award for her sculptural work and research on the differently-abled body.
DB: For the past few years, I have been using my paintings as a coping mechanism for dealing with my disability. I have compartmentalized my feelings of isolation, fears, and desires into different selves which are the main characters in my paintings.
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Project Statement: The Problem BodyBroche’s painting and installation practice examines the relationship between the disabled body and normative standards of beauty. The Problem Body invites us to take an extended look at bodies that differ from the norm. By casting parts of her body in plaster, Broche challenges us to reconsider not just beauty standards but what is normal in a society that values physical appearance to the detriment of true representation. This body of work allows the viewer to look at the disabled body without feeling the need to censure themselves on behalf of interpersonal courtesy.
DB: My work is an ongoing examination and personal exploration of the differently-abled female body. To portray issues about disability, I draw inspiration from my own experience as a wheelchair user to promote and question society’s views of the disabled body. I aim to develop the visual language I employ in my paintings and sculptures to challenge societal perception of normalcy. As an artist I want my work to inspire a positive dialogue about body issues and increase positive representations of the differently-abled body. @dimelzabroche @dimelzabrocheart dimelzabroche.com |
Dimelza Broche, Yellow, oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches, 2018
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Dimelza Broche, Red, oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches, 2018
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DB: To navigate the medical and social perception of disability, I initially produced a series of paintings where different selves inhabited a memory palace. This metaphorical space that I translated into visual language is ever flowing with sceneries depicted inside a dark structure, the mind. This structure is a spacious terrarium of the imagination, a controlled landscape within the realms of consciousness. It represents a luscious container of symbolic bodies, driven by different narratives and in the act of becoming.
DB: They wander around a space that as beautiful as it is, it may suffocate them or provide relief. The multiplicities of selves live in darkness, and they only come to life when exposed to the spotlight. In this stage they live, they hurt, they contemplate, they die, mutate, they fragment, they get digested.
DB: They wander around a space that as beautiful as it is, it may suffocate them or provide relief. The multiplicities of selves live in darkness, and they only come to life when exposed to the spotlight. In this stage they live, they hurt, they contemplate, they die, mutate, they fragment, they get digested.
Dimelza Broche, Treasure, oil on canvas, 12 x 12 inches, 2020
Dimelza Broche, Drifting to the Other Side I, oil on canvas, 8 x 8 inches, 2020
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Dimelza Broche, At the Peak, oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches, 2018
Dimelza Broche, The Void, oil on canvas, 36 x 34 inches, 2016-2020
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"My sculptural work, on the other hand, is a new endeavor that has helped me accept my body the way it is."
In the shift from painting to sculpture, Broche investigated the differently-abled body in conversation with traditional, ableist and objectified representations of the female anatomy. The examination and presentation of her body, fragmented, multiplied and transformed through soft and hard materials, contributes to an ongoing dialogue about the acceptance and representation of differently-abled bodies in our contemporary visual culture.
Dimelza Broche, Reinventing Venus/Rebirth of Venus, details, fibers, polymer gypsum, pins, wood, silicone, glass, and plastic, 4 x 9 x 2 feet, 2019
Dimelza Broche, Reinventing Venus/Rebirth of Venus, details, fibers, polymer gypsum, pins, wood, silicone, glass, and plastic, 4 x 9 x 2 feet, 2019
Dimelza Broche turned to art to navigate the isolation she experienced in her formative years.
DB: Growing up I was homeschooled, and I only got to interact with a few children at a time. I spent years of my life home or in hospitals, watching TV, and dreaming of playing outside. |
Dimelza Broche, Reinventing Venus/Rebirth of Venus, details, fibers, polymer gypsum, pins, wood, silicone, glass, and plastic, 4 x 9 x 2 feet, 2019
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Dimelza Broche, Reinventing Venus/Rebirth of Venus, details, fibers, polymer gypsum, pins, wood, silicone, glass, and plastic, 4 x 9 x 2 feet, 2019
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Dimelza Broche, Reinventing Venus/Rebirth of Venus, details, fibers, polymer gypsum, pins, wood, silicone, glass, and plastic, 4 x 9 x 2 feet, 2019
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Dimelza Broche, Soft White, Raw Red and Reinventing Venus/Rebirth of Venus, installation views, 2019
"I experienced ignorance and fear from people who did not understand my changed body."DB: As my childhood was ending, I experienced ignorance and fear from people who did not understand my changed body, people who had no time to interact with someone whose wheelchair was seen as an obstacle. This created in me the need for a creative outlet where I could become different people and things. Like I mentioned in the previous section, I found in movies and painting a world where I could do anything and escape my loneliness. I was using this world of continuous transformation to escape my disability.
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Dimelza Broche, Reinventing Venus/Rebirth of Venus, details, fibers, polymer gypsum, pins, wood, silicone, glass, and plastic, 4 x 9 x 2 feet, 2019
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Dimelza Broche, Soft White, Raw Red, detail, fibers, polymer gypsum, pins, wood, plaster, silicone, and plastic, 8 x 4 x 8 feet, 2019
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Dimelza Broche, Soft White, Raw Red, detail, fibers, polymer gypsum, pins, wood, plaster, silicone, and plastic, 8 x 4 x 8 feet, 2019
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Dimelza Broche, Soft White, Raw Red, detail, fibers, polymer gypsum, pins, wood, plaster, silicone, and plastic, 8 x 4 x 8 feet, 2019
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Dimelza Broche, Soft White, Raw Red, detail, fibers, polymer gypsum, pins, wood, plaster, silicone, and plastic, 8 x 4 x 8 feet, 2019
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Dimelza Broche, Soft White, Raw Red, detail, fibers, polymer gypsum, pins, wood, plaster, silicone, and plastic, 8 x 4 x 8 feet, 2019
"The Problem Body freed me to create work that celebrates my body"
DB: Society’s perception thinks of me as disabled, but I am just differently-abled.
“The presence of disability creates a different picture of identity --one less stable than identities associated with gender, race, sexuality, nation, and class-- and therefore presenting the opportunity to rethink how human identity works [..] able-bodiedness is a temporary identity at best, because anyone, at some point in their lives, will become disabled."
-Tobin Siebers
DB: The ‘problem body’ might not be able to hike a mountain to reach the top but it can get there by other means.
“The presence of disability creates a different picture of identity --one less stable than identities associated with gender, race, sexuality, nation, and class-- and therefore presenting the opportunity to rethink how human identity works [..] able-bodiedness is a temporary identity at best, because anyone, at some point in their lives, will become disabled."
-Tobin Siebers
DB: The ‘problem body’ might not be able to hike a mountain to reach the top but it can get there by other means.
See more of Dimelza Broche's work on her website: dimelzabroche.wixsite.com/fineart and see what she has been up to on her Instagram @dimelzabroche