Poignant Pics no. 31: On Dale Rio's Self-Preservation and Coping Mechanism
Welcome to no. 31 in our series Poignant Pics where our editor, Diana Nicholette Jeon, writes about Dale Rio's images Self-Preservation and Coping Mechanism
Horrific Beauty
[clicking on an image will open a lightbox]
They say each person is an island, but it’s not true, each person is a silence, yes, that’s it, a silence, each of us with our own silence, each of us with the silence that is us. —José Saramago, The Cave
One of my favorite things about art is that its imagery can, at first glance, appear curious, intriguing, and/or beautiful to entice you closer. It whispers to you with a nuanced voice, but when you go deeper and look longer, you may find a serious work about a contemporary issue that needs more discussion and exposure. Work that enters through the mind but lodges deeply in the heart and the gut. This pair of images by Dale Rio does that well.
My first thought upon briefly spying the left image was “Why is seemingly everyone (but me) sewing on their images these days? I need to look at this further.” My appreciation for work that uses this technique hinges upon how it is used. Is it simply a conceit, or does it have mana* that is integral to the meaning of the work? Once I clicked on the IG post, I noticed the second image beneath. And as surely as light dawns on Marblehead, the significance of the sewing to this image–the clash of the violent and the repair–was apparent. Self-harm, hidden deeply in the shadows, is intrinsically private as a coping strategy to relieve emotional pain and struggle. Indiscriminate, it affects youth and teens from all socio-economic demographics. There is a lot of shame and a lot of stigma, as with most mental health issues. Once the concept for these images emerges, it might be challenging for a viewer to look at the work for an extended time. However challenging though, it is worthwhile, as the work is beautifully presented, and the topic is timely and important. Photography is so powerful because we can convey and emote so much in a single image, and then use it to start a dialogue to raise awareness.
Painter Enrique Martinez Celaya, whose artistic thinking shaped mine very early in my schooling, has said, “Art allows everything important to be in the work as material and aim.” I find this to be very true here. Rio has not favored any given part of the processes she uses here, but rather fully integrated the materials, techniques, and imagery into a noteworthy and powerful statement.
I asked Dale for a statement about the images and she wrote: “I believe that misperceptions and generalizations prevail when it comes to mental health. Assumptions are made regarding people’s intentions, preventing a deeper understanding of actions and choices made by individuals and the motivations that underlie them. With these images, I experiment with the materiality inherent in the tintype process in order to create work that provides a different perspective on and treatment of behaviors that I believe are often misunderstood. Metal plates are treated as a substrate, like skin, and they are modified as such, communicating stories as unique as the people the images represent.”
Please, Dale, keep making work like this about these difficult subjects. Not only is it work I want to spend significant time with, but the message contained within is one more people need to “hear” and deeply consider. Bravo, Dale.
*Notes: Hawaiian word loosely translated as “power”
PS: If you or someone you know is using self-harm as a coping mechanism, there are resources to help available here.
Artist Bio
Dale Rio is a visual artist whose work explores issues such as mortality, human constructs, and man’s relationship with the natural world. Utilizing film and historic photographic processes, Dale’s artistic explorations extend both outward – with observation and documentation of the world around her – and inward with personal reflection upon and response to those observations. Dale’s photographs have been shown extensively in the U.S., as well as in England, Germany, and New Zealand. She is a co-founder of The Halide Project and founder of Point A to Point B: analog explorations.
More of Dale’s work can be found here: https://dalerio.com
Author Bio
Diana Nicholette Jeon is an award-winning artist based in Honolulu, HI, who works primarily with lens-based media. Her work has been seen internationally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions and is held in public and private collections. Jeon holds an MFA from UMBC.