Proposal Student Gallery Space

I would like to have a show in one of the student space galleries at MICA, hopefully in the springtime.  I've been thinking a lot lately about how someone can literally be someone else in a given moment, act, look, think differently, respond to stimuli differently.  I am using myself as an example, in this case.  So, to humor this idea, let's say I'm watching Oprah on the television in the middle of the day.  I'm lying on the couch, with my feet up, in sweatpants and warm socks, because I am sick.  I have eaten a banana and two bowls of ice cream.  Oprah is a charismatic person, and I can see this.  I am imagining through her gestures and animation what it is to be like Oprah.  I think of people smiling as I reveal that I am going to give them a makeover, and their smiling crooked teeth look hideous to me, which is part of why I want to give them a makeover in the first place.  I want to make everyone feel great about themselves, and I want for people to listen to me, and most of all, I want for my toy poodle to live a long and healthy life.  

For a moment there, on the couch, I have become Oprah Winfrey, through the power of my own thoughts and by literally placing myself in her position as I can see it at this moment in time.  This happens often to me, and to other people I believe, these moments where you don't feel that you are residing in your own body, a moment when your mind has completely numbed out any physical sensations and you can sometimes even imagine looking at yourself from a different physical viewpoint in the same room.  These moments are fleeting, to say the least, but what if they weren't.  What if one could sustain this feeling of being someone else for a minute, or an hour, or even a day.  What if someone could create paintings, as I do, as if they were someone else.  Painting to painting, created by a different hand each time, with different sensibilities and completely varied subject matter.  The power of thought and deception of the self is something that interests me greatly, as a reaction to this interest, I would like to curate my own painting show, using a number of different aliases to label paintings that we all created by myself.  The point of this is not to pull a publicity stunt through some novelty art piece; my name doesn't need even need to be on the exhibition wall, preferably not if possible.  I would like to test the control and strength of my own mind against the eye of the viewer.  Is it possible to create paintings that have absolutely no connection with each other when you are the sole person creating the paintings?  

I hope to make this exhibit part painting, part performance, and part installation.  The painting portion is self-explanatory.  I would have 8-10 pieces of artwork, all fairly traditional paintings and all given equal amounts of time and care into their makeup.  I would hope to create aliases for each painting, create a booklet with names and background information for each individual "artist."  To take it a step further, I would attempt to gather a cast of characters to play these "artists" at the opening for the exhibition, create a tightly woven script in which I would create an artist's statement for each of the characters, and with their help, put on a performance in which a gallery of paintings are the stage.  At this point, there will be blatant lies and deceit, and there is no way around this.  I would hopefully be able to plant an ear bud in each actor, and monitor their conversations with gallery goers, and speak through the microphone to one actor at a time, inserting my own bit and pieces into the conversation as I see fit, improvising on the script in interesting and hopefully funny and awkward ways.  I'd make a point to document this experience subtly, with people filming throughout the crowd, these conversations between the artists and the viewers.  Part of the project will be an open jab at the idea of gallery openings, about how much of a spectacle they are and how ridiculous and inane some of the conversations can be.  This documentation will be edited and then shown in three different parts, on three different monitors inside the gallery space, after the opening has already happened.  There will then be a closing exhibition in which the "artists" will be invited back as spectators to view their own performances, and of course, the paintings themselves that they "painted."