{"id":5561,"date":"2018-11-17T03:31:22","date_gmt":"2018-11-17T03:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/?p=5561"},"modified":"2018-11-18T18:38:32","modified_gmt":"2018-11-18T18:38:32","slug":"millie-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/millie-brown\/","title":{"rendered":"Millie Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Elisabeth Sherman<\/em><\/p>\n

In March of 2014, a video popped up online\u2014and then quickly went viral\u2014capturing a Lady Gaga concert, in which the singer invites the performance artist Millie Brown to join her on the stage. Gaga bangs wildly on her drum set, and screams \u201cI don\u2019t play by your fucking rules! This is our world!\u201d as Brown pulls her hair away from her face, sticks two fingers down her throat, and vomits green milk onto the singers chest. She heaves a few more streams of the gloopy liquid out of her mouth, Gaga taps her a couple times with her drum sticks, and then Brown flips her hair and struts off stage.<\/p>\n

The responses to their performance ranged from merely grossed out to deeply insulted\u2014pop star Demi Lovato condemned the pair for glamorizing bulimia (an accusation that Brown firmly rejects)\u2014but Brown is aware that some people will hate work her, and others will love it. There isn\u2019t much in between.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe it to be vulgar. I believe it\u2019s human,\u201d says Brown. \u201cCre\u00adating work that brings us closer to raw human emotion and explores the limits of the human mind is what interests me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Preparing one of her pieces consists of what Brown refers to as \u201csol\u00aditude performance,\u201d during which she fasts for several days to achieve mental and physical clarity. She has fasted before, for a project called Wilting Point <\/em>in which she laid in a bed of dying flowers in the win\u00addow of the Hatbox gallery in New York, subsisting on nothing but water for seven days. \u201cThis climax of the performance I believe to be a projection of my soul, thoughts, emotions, and DNA made visible to the outside world,\u201d Brown explains.<\/p>\n

All of Brown\u2019s projects have explored the idea of physical and mental transcendence: From Suspended by Optimism<\/em>, in which she hung from helium balloons in the entrance of a Miami hotel, to Rainbow Body<\/em>, a series of dreamy pastel paintings meant to recreate the Los An\u00adgeles sky that resemble watercolors but were actually created using food coloring and almond milk, which she vomited onto canvas\u2014a process she characterizes as \u201cpainting from the inside-out.\u201d Tibetan Buddhism informed the creation of Rainbow Body<\/em>, a theology which advocates for spiritual transcendence. By altering her state of mind, achieved either through fasting or positioning her body in spaces that allow her to eclipse the ties that bind her to the Earth, Brown can access previously undiscovered regions of her consciousness.<\/p>\n

Brown notes that fans as young as seven years old have reached out to her expressing their interest in becoming performance artists them\u00adselves, and sending her work of their own, after experiencing one of her performances. Those who have suffered from illnesses, trauma, and heartbreak, feel especially connected to Brown\u2019s artwork: these are people that most commonly come forward to tell her how her work has helped them overcome their ailments, which makes sense. An audience haunted by bodily harm should readily connect with art\u00adwork that uses the body as the main tool of expression and commu\u00adnication.<\/p>\n