Spirit is the beginning of a series initiated by happening upon a competitive cheerleading event. Fascinated, for the next year I attended a series of these
competitions and took thousands of pictures. Impacted by the synchronicity and architecture of the routines I derived patterns incorporating the figures and traditional
textile patterns. They are silk-screened onto the photograph and textured with wallpaper flocking.
I am interested in the images dichotomies: The figure that gains her de facto autonomy by failing to keep in synch with her peers, by allowing expressions of pain to break
her camera-ready smile along with the athleticism and skill of the girls' bodies and the constraining and objectifying costume. Their simultaneous empowerment is reflected
in the figure, their objectification is echoed in the ceaseless repeating of the figure in the decorative patterning.
