Artist Statement In the tradition of Marcel Duchamp, Cindy Sherman, Sandy Scogland, Joan Jonas, Anais Nin Leah Solo Taylor creates a series of doll-based installations that metaphorically represent her alter egos. The installations juxtapose traditional themes of childhood such as play, love, splendor and happiness with feminist issues of growing up female, such as feelings of being imprisoned, abused, unrecognized and abandoned. There is an eerie edge of insanity in her installations, a surprising pain within the idyllic images of childhood that is disturbing and thought provoking. Using these installations as both subject and background, Ms. Taylor extends their power and their statement through powerful performances that draw on her wide ranging studies and experiences in different cultures around the world. Her pieces speak to a universal humanity and by speaking to the truths of our shared humanity transcend cultural and physical boundaries and her installations support this by drawing from and being constructed of found, discarded vintage images and icons of our popular culture. Installations can be only slightly less ephemeral than performances, so Ms. Taylor captures her work thorough photo documentation which are works of art in their own right and in fact become the commercial aspect of her work. These photos are created in a limited series which are sold to the public. This cycle creates a permanent link between the culture she draws from for her work and the culture she gives back to by providing a permanent record of her ephemeral art. Through this multi-tiered self-reflective process, Ms. Taylor is participating in the ritual of self-realization which is one of the vital purposes of ritual and myth. In her newest work, representing the newest layer of cultural and self examination, Ms. Taylor is using video to record the entire process of creation. In this process she is both artist and anthropologist, keeping the camera constantly running to capture a record of the forces that interact with the space of installation, performance and photography. In creating the contours of these layers of her work, Ms. Taylor has drawn from her experiences in experimental theatre where she would break the fourth wall, often running through the audience, asking questions of them and either inviting or compelling them to participate in her work. In Ms. Taylor's current work, everything starts with the doll. Why the doll? The doll and their doll houses were given exclusively to little girls. These dolls served as the role models we used to shape our self images. Barbie was both primary homemaker and sexy, faithful companion, each focused on the needs of men. Later she became a super career goal, often trying to function in a male defined role, and giving men an easy way to cover themselves as the obvious moral truths of the feminist movement revealed our cultural hypocrisy and double standards. These dolls shaped the quintessential American female and later ethnic and global women's ideas of herself. A Female ideal had been created by marketers guessing what the masses wanted and needed. Ms. Taylor's work deconstructs these images and attempts to create a new a paradigm using the truths of her life and experiences. Her work engages, interacts and excites the viewer. The child's playroom installation is more experiential, than objective. The idea and feeling is to enter sit down and play. To enjoy, reminisce, re experience the drama of being a child. By the same token the trauma of being a child is present. There are perplexing juxtapositions and incongruities one does not associate with a happy childhood. There are dolls without faces used to identify abused children. There are dolls with real faces of "missing" children. There are teenage or child dolls who appear pregnant on closer examination or missing limbs. There is something disturbing about this domestic playroom. Dolls are symbols of Love, Power, Belonging, Acceptance. The same issues child must learn to become Adults. On a physical level you can engage with toys with ,or sand. In the latter years of his life Swiss psychologist Carl Jung developed sandplay therapy. There is an actual sandbox set up to specifications of sandtray therapy. Even the book rests nearby, for people to peruse and make their own childhood scene which depict their inner life of feeling. A Polaroid is also nearby for people to record this image, to ponder during the weeks and months to come as if they were in a therapeutic context. On a symbolic and metaphoric level, people have this guide to look deeply at associations, rediscover something in childhood or daily life today, while their children are at play in a nearby basket of toys. If one is not interested in a narrative level, one can simply join the children and play. On a narrative level through performance, like Performance artist of the nineties and new millennium who use autobiography as leaping off point of performance. She is interested in Personal myths, and personal drama. Almost like an enactment of Anais Nin Journal. On a mythic level, Persephone,-Demeter, Pachamama, Innana and the underworld encompass her thinking. On a literary level, her cage installation represents Ibsen's Doll house, or the life of a character from the short story Yellow Wallpaper or the independent film, Welcome to the Doll house. Ann Sextons poem about Barbie can be seen as borrowed text. The philosophic discourses which engage Leah's work are those of Julia Kristeva and the Abject as well as the early writings of Joseph Kosuth on language, anthropology and Identity. Her work is a unique plethora of twentieth century dialogue and engagement.