About The Work

Irma Optimist's work was imbued with iconographic motifs. Most of these were objects that underline "masculine" and "feminine" characteristics and opposing functions: sports and science vs. cooking and cleaning. One of the key images in Body Theorema was an electric sander on top of which she tied a raw chicken, and thereabove - a sparkler.
Referring to her work for BLURRR 3, Optimist says: "Body Theorema for chicken and cocks explores usage rather than grammar, realizations rather than rules, materials rather than models. It doesn't legitimize a result, but can render a process visible. Within this system, overlapping segments trigger simultaneous situations where the space of theorema increases manifold."

About The Artist

Works most of the time in a "masculine" profession - as a University professor of mathematics. In her "feminine" role as a performance artist, Irma reflects the dichotomy between the "feminine" and the "masculine" in presentations that draw from these two different worlds.
"My work as a performance artist also mediates the world of women. Although my medium is very active and straightforward, it still brings about its message in a gentle and sympathetic way. Professionally I have also a doctoral degree in Mathematics. In my performances I combine both these disciplines in a very special manner resulting in an intriguing symbiosis of cool scientific presentation and warm feminine approach. This marriage of the two results in a seducing verbal aesthetics, as well as a sense of humour. My performances bring together secret mathematics, fuzzy logic and chaos theory, not to forget the strong combination of the female brain and body."

 

 

Body Theorema