Kara Dunne
Kara Dunne is a printmaker and performance artist who also dabbles in video and installation. She studied printmaking and glassblowing at Alfred University, performance at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and earned her master’s degree in printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her creative drive is fueled by her dual background in both the visual arts and theater; the combination of the two enable her to explore the opportunities of the live, the staged and the recorded. Dunne believes art should be an active experience, not a passive event, and should be encountered in other places besides the confines of a museum or gallery. She strives to find new ways in which her work may interact with the public in their natural habitat. Her videos, performances and prints serve as a social commentary on what we forget about the past, deny in the present and dream about in the future.
Femambiance (Virgin Mary Sightings)
The shape of the Virgin Mary appears in stains on windows and inside the knot holes of door panels. When she shows up, hundreds flock to these 'sightings' of the Virgin. But what would happen if she showed up on the street in real life?
'Femambiance', an ongoing performance, began in 2004 when I dressed up as the Virgin Mary and walked around the Museum of Fine Arts carrying a plastic baby Jesus in my arms. I wanted to stop in front of the Madonna and child paintings and critique them while standing next to a museum visitor looking on at the same time. I also froze in place from time to time- some people thought I was a sculpture in the museum. Ultimately I was kicked out in the Contemporary Art wing, next to a giant cheese grater sculpture and a painting of Walt Disney for "distracting from the artists who were actually invited to the exhibit".
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