Reactions to the Work of Jana Sterback and Valerie Blass

The two artists whose work struck me most in Tuesday's class were Jana Sterbak and Valerie Blass. It was only after further investigation that I realized how similar their work actually is--obviously the two artists are quite different, but their art seems to me to be doing some of the same things. What I believe struck me most initially with both of these artists was how jarring and strange the content of their work was (something I often find appealing), and the palpable physical presence of their work. Instillation art automatically has more of a literally physical presence in general, but I feel when I look at the work of both Sterbak and Blass that to be walking through a gallery by yourself and to come upon a piece of work by either of them would be similar in a lot of ways to walking through a gallery alone and suddenly coming upon another person. The most obvious way in which this effect is accomplished is that both Blass and Sterbak's work frequently takes the form life sized figures or bodies, but it seems like there would also be a life-like quality to them that may bot be present in all life-sized figures. Similarely, both Blass and Sterbak seem to be working with aspects of embodiment, especially with Sterbak and frequently with Blass these seem to be themes of female embodiment and femininity.