Artist's Statement: "Sick, Bitch, Crip"

Katherine Araniello

I am a London-based artist using video, digital imagery and performance art to respond to contemporary themes around disability. I create frameworks that challenge and alter preconceptions. This is done through subversive humour and presenting disability in fresh discourses.

My focus is to disrupt and use satire in current issues related to disability such as assisted suicide, media representation, prejudice, charity, ignorance and body aesthetics. My work is informed by being a disabled person, experiencing first-hand a unique perspective on the way in which society behaves towards disabled people. I am stimulated by society’s ignorance towards disability and negative representation that undermines disabled people's lives and creates an imbalance between people who sit outside of what is considered normal i.e. a body that is able bodied and does not require assistance to function.

My processes include presenting disability in an alternative context and therefore let the viewer rethink disability. In a recent amalgamation of spaghetti westerns and cowboy films, I place a wheelchair user inside the film. This altered setting is void of medical context and the viewer is confronted with popular culture that is juxtaposed with disability. The film is driven by excitement, intrigue and action and therefore disability has a unique chance to detach from the stereotypical adversity over tragedy role.

I started making work on assisted suicide in 2007 and this continues to be an area I feel compelled to respond to. My method is to break down and remove the grimness associated with assisted suicide and replace the aesthetics and style of assisted suicide with something new. I apply different techniques for the many pieces I have made and this includes kitsch aesthetics and karaoke sing-along about wanting to die. I use satire and irony in the body of work which includes video diaries, images and short films. My art on assisted suicide includes exposing the transparency and inequality assisted suicide brings to society and for the viewer to engage with the absurdness of assisted suicide.

My work twists and plays with disability logic. It does not preach; it subverts disability and is avant-garde in its delivery.

Introducing the SickBitchCrip (SBC) Bitches

Sick – is an iconic wheelchair-bound living miracle and is the proud host of a multitude of debilitating diseases. She is still breathing and lives life to the full despite her many conflictions. She holds the world record for being the sickest cripple ever and she has no intentions of letting anyone in with a chance of snatching this prestigious title. Everyone adores her and she is a Sick celebrity lapping up all the sympathy and pity she can muster.

Bitch – has a disproportionate over inflated ego and fiery tits. She dreams of being crippled and is desperate to hunt down a surgeon who will snap her spinal cord to stop her legs from wriggling. In frenzied acts of self-destruction to make her dream come true she will do anything to lame herself, yet tragically all attempts of crippling herself to smithereens have failed. Every day is a struggle but she is determined that one day she will successfully disable herself and steal the limelight from Sick.

Crip - is a product of her own self-indulgence. Her greasy fatty fried festering look and sit still and do sweet fuck all attitude has rendered her into a piss guzzling, fast food obsessed junkie. Her assistant lap dog bitch named Gob, is determined to gobble all the crap that Crip shoves down her gullet. The other two bitches have their eyes on Crip in fear that one day she may consume them and become the ultimate Sick Bitch Crip. Crip is fantastic at playing the Crip card and has a natural gift for pulling at the heartstrings and making people weep.

SickBitchCrips are the greatest thing that the world could ever want. ‘Sick’ the cripple that everyone wants to be…

SickBitchCrips, growth in popularity is increasing every second – ‘Bitch’, you know you want to be her – everyone’s favourite and everyone’s secret little desire…

SickBitchCrips elevating high above their contemporaries - ‘Crip’ the epitome of success and envy of many…

SBC is a guise and a persona that has a voice and an inflated personality. She is a super crip, one person; she has a blog; she has a presence on Facebook; she uploads films to YouTube. She demands to be visible, placing herself anywhere she can within the social media, digital images and short film. SBC latest development is that she has now multiplied into three, Sick, Bitch and Crip.