Side table, glass bowl, 12 glass spheres (varied diameters), resin, water, distilled water, oxytocin, serotonin, adrenaline, dopamine, norepinephrine, vasopressin, histamine, acetylcholine, estradiol, testosterone, semen, and saliva. 87 x 40 x 40 cm. 2023.
This Feels Right, Until… brings shared internal, often intangible sensations of attraction, love, lust, and attachment into a representative, quantifiable and tangible state. The artwork plays with the definitions of “feeling” and the tensions between love as it is felt and love as a subject of analysis, accepting both simultaneously.
The experience of love is complex. When viewed through an analytical lens, these euphoric feelings can be translated into a dance between ten biochemicals and two bodily fluids:
Oxytocin, Serotonin, Adrenaline, Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Vasopressin, Histamine, Acetylcholine, Estradiol, Testosterone, Semen and Saliva.
They might feel otherworldly to us, yet they are central to our sense of ourselves and of others.
Video documentation:
https://vimeo.com/901853884
Artist’s blood, distilled water, hollow glass spheres (30mm ⌀) and resin, 2023.
Self-Extended is composed of hundreds of sealed hollow glass spheres, each filled with varying amounts of the artist’s blood (collected with the assistance of a GP periodically over the last two years), and distilled water.
Self-Extended challenges the rational physical limitations of the self by looking at the components of the body as a medium like any other. Blood carries an array of emotional and physical states within it. In Self-Extended this bodily component is held in a state of stasis, to expand the physical boundaries through space and time.
The glass spheres become objects that incubate versions of the artist, allowing them to co-exist simultaneously.
29.7 x 42cm, Giclée print on Hahnemühle paper, 2023.
As part of a Catholic upbringing, Sundays start with morning mass, the house is decorated with religious iconography, and the idea of the ‘soul’ is introduced positively at an early age.
Philosopher René Descartes’ believed that the ‘soul’ has a palpable resting place in the pineal gland, located in the center of the brain. Through this locus the ‘soul’ intermingled with the physical self, exerting its command over the body through internally flowing animal spirits.
The foundations of Animal Spirits have Catholic undertones, later built upon Descartes’ belief that the ‘soul’ is dominant over the body and that the ‘self’ are two separate and intimately connected entities.
When rationalised and viewed in the present day, the definition of the ‘self’, its multiple manifestations, and our control over it, feels uncertain. The series explores how we deal with such uncertainties, uneasy thoughts, and sensations.
Per image: 59 x 84cm, Giclée print on Hahnemühle paper, 2020.
BitterSweet on the Tongue is a series of large photographs that revolves around identifying universal feelings of desire and loss, the spectrum that exists between them, their union, and the ways we deal with both.
The series developed over a year, by capturing people close to me and objects/living things within personal and familiar environments. The various images were first grouped together based on a common sensation, that of wanting something back that is lost, close but not close enough, while attempting to prevent connections from disappearing. The sixteen images were later joined together into eight diptychs to expand their narrative and meanings through their opposing aspects. Their larger-than-life size is intended to create a guarded atmosphere, as a defence mechanism against the vulnerability, honesty, and confrontation presented.
On the other hand, the relationship between each diptych creates ambiguity. This gains importance as it allows room for the viewers’ personal experiences to come into play, evolving their narration. Consequently, the series shifts from its personal foundation to a space of relatability.
The Spotlight Effect developed from researching fear which unintentionally led to phobias, specifically Social Anxiety Disorder which is an extreme fear of social interaction.
The research led to finding an article in which diagnosed individuals were asked to describe how the disorder affects them on a day to day basis. A common paranoia is that sufferers feel that others in their surroundings are constantly observing their every move through a judgmental lens. The Spotlight Effect is an attempt to create a tangible portrayal of what that may feel like. The artwork is made of around one hundred domed hexagons that interlock together, glazed with a highly reflective gloss black which reflects the surroundings in detail. Once the viewer stands in front of them, they are reflected on every single hexagon, which act like pupils, observing their every move.
The title, “The Spotlight Effect” is a physiological term for a phenomenon in which a person thinks that they are being constantly noticed, which corresponds with the anecdotal experiences of those who suffer from social anxiety.