“Okay, Okay; and other lies we tell ourselves"

August 2021 brings to the ‘Balt Schaffer gallery at the Bunker Center for the Arts Madeline Brice. Her Exhibition: “Okay, Okay; and other lies we tell ourselves” will be up all month. Okay, okay; and other lies we tell ourselves is a series of works in response to the increasing number of untruths about ourselves we quietly, loudly speak into existence.  “Do you smoke?” “No”, I say, having smoked a cigarette only an hour ago. This work is an investigation into the lies I’ve told and continue to tell myself and the cognitive dissonance it implies. For dissonance is ambiguous, intangible. I often tie it to my feelings about perception. Having recently been diagnosed with a visual perception disorder these untruths have caused a more reactionary impulse. This disorder causes the world to seem dreamlike and delusive, an unwavering struggle between myself and reality. I can no longer sit with the dissonant discomfort like I used to. I’m interested in the perceptive patterns that these lies or untruths create as they build up in a portion of the psychological space, their combined power gradually forcing a change in my attitudes and behaviors.