THE SELVES

THE SELVES SONJA AHLERS

A HAUNTING, BEAUTIFUL STUDY OF ART, POP, FEMININITY, AND FEMINISM Before blogs, there were zines. Before zines, there were scrapbooks. Sometimes overlooked in the quest to produce high culture, these most direct and intimate means of communication and recording memory are the tools favored by Sonja Ahlers in the making of her art. A self-taught artist and writer, Ahlers wears her pop-culture obsessions on her sleeve, professing her love for such visual icons as Princess Di, Holly Hobbie, and Stevie Nicks. Focusing on found objects such as stickers, greeting cards, andmagazine photos collected in collage framework, complete with song lyrics hand-lettered in cursive script and heartbreaking, melancholic watercolors, Ahlers explores and exposes the social construction of roles, feminine and otherwise. Beginning with incipient childhood self-awareness and traversing high school status jockeying to adult social climbing, the cultural imagery that supports and informs personal identity is given uneasy new meanings and importance in Ahlers's visual remixes.

SONJA AHLERS

SONJA AHLERS is a former Duranie who was born the same year as Joni Mitchell's Blue. She is the author of Temper, Temper and Fatal Distraction and lives in Toronto. She regularly exhibits visual art and installation work.