My interests, and the directives that have driven my own art
practice, involve black feminist discourse, questions of history,
reality and truth as they relate to science and the unknown,
and the purpose of the soul/spirit in art.

My practice uses interactive structures that involve movement,
narrative and ritual practices like chanting, repeated gestures
and gazing, to create a sensate journey that audience
practitioners become a part of and are invested in. I am also a
glossolalia vocalist. I use speaking in tongues in addition to
previously written lyrics, as elements in a performance score. I
am interested in how the archetypes of shaman, healer,
activist, muse and storyteller impact the public realm and how
they can be used to heal and guide us in times of trouble. No
doubt, we are in troubling times now and I believe that it is my
role as an artist to activate and be part of a remembering of the
transforming power of communal space.

Improvisation in the context of my work is born from the
experience of embodying the affects of the narrative that is
being revealed during a performance. It’s a form of attunement
between all practitioners present - the artist and the audience
members in the space.

I explore tyranny as a program that attempts to delimit and
homogenize the personality. Getting free may not mean
overthrowing or impeaching despots. It may mean
investigating the ways that tyranny works on our battered
psyches everyday. It may mean determining what our
ungovernable selves have in store for us and accepting what
they illumine. It may also mean recasting the fear of death and
re-imagining the dissolution of self as a kind of revolutionary
poetry that has no end or boundary and therefore, no limits. It
may mean all or none of these things. My art practice
incorporates archetypes that reference the disintegration of
the personality in order to untie vampiric tyrannical webs that
seep into our consciousness and plant themselves in our minds
as truth.

Eugenia Chellet began her artistic career in photography and in the 1980s began to experiment with other media, first collage then photomontage, art objects, video, installation, documentary and performance. Many of her works now combine these techniques, materials and elements.

Her work focuses on female archetypes and other feminine imagery, often mixing those from classical art and those mass media of the 20th century to the present. She explores feminine identity especially as it related to the body, often with irony, irreverent humor and kitsch. Her works have depicted such images as virgins, female religious figures, prostitutes, divas, Barbie dolls and famous women such as Marilyn Monroe and Mata Hari.

Her depictions of the feminine often focus on images of herself, using the self-portrait to explore her own identity and self-affirmation as a woman in her place and time. She has depicted herself in classic paintings, films, comic books, as pin-up girls and as models, starting in such early works as Complejo de Musa (1981) and La Maja Soy Yo (1989).

Her work has evolved towards performance, often using herself to depict the main female figure(s). She learned about performance art through books and was impressed by the idea of experimenting with time and space as well as with an audience directly. For Chellet, doing performance is a way to get beyond her own boundaries, confronting her limits and those of others to express her doubts and worries. She believes that performance art is partly therapeutic and healing in a ritual sense. She has represented herself as the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, as the wife of Arnolfini, Joan of Arc, Cinderella and several versions of the Virgin Mary, as well as a nurse, a neglected housewife, a nun, as a femme fatale, prostitute and more. Chellet has performed in various venues from the street to Chapultepec Park, to museums such as ex Teresa el Actual and the Museo del Chopo and in avant guarde galleries.

Her work has been presented in numerous collective shows, including those at the José María Velasco Gallery in Mexico City (1995), Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico City (1994), the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (1993), Casa de Cultura México-Japón (1992), the Museo de la Ciudad de México (1991), an exhibit sponsored by the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores in Mendoza, Argentina (1990), the Efrén REbollendo Cultural Forum in Pachuca (1989), the Museo Nacional de San Carlos in Mexico City (1989), the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City (1987), the III Bienal Latinoamericana de Fotografía in Havana (1985), and the Manuel Alvarez Bravo Gallery in Mexico City (1981) .

Her work has been recognized with membership in the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana.

(sourced from wikivisually.com)