IT TAKES A MUSCLE: wholes, holes, and other voids
Thesis Exhibition @ The Anderson, Richmond, VA
2022
In the BELLY of the BEAST, the HUMAN
in the deep end of a SWIMMING POOL
in a GRAVE, looking up/out from within
at the base of a CRATER, ABYSS, PIT
the room as a CRADLE, INCUBATOR
architecture as MOTHER MOLD.
THE LOST SALT
foam, wax, pigment, epoxy, silicon-bronze, collective piss
24” x 48” x 48”
2022
In Diana Kappel-Smith's 1994 book "Desert Time" she speaks of containment, salt, the human body, and proportion: “Our body fluids contain 0.9 percent salt, nowadays, very likely the exact salinity of whatever ancient sea we managed to crawl out of, a sea we could leave because we had learned, first of all, to contain it. This is a marvel: that we still contain what once contained us. What is more marvelous is that we maintain it with exactitude.”
Visual Description:
coming soon
WHOLE HOLE
silicone, thermoplastics, pigment, silicone tubing, wire, hardware.
12’ x 30” x 12”
2022
WHOLE HOLE explores the mouth and the asshole as ultimately tethered sites of pleasure, pain, illness, desire, intimacy, and power. On the surface, these sites appear as thresholds between external and internal/ public and private, but with their shared alimentary canal, an assumed binary relationship is much harder to determine.
Visual Description:
coming soon
THE PIT
foam tiles, extant architecture, hardware
9’ x 24’ x 22’
2022
Inspired by 1970s conversation pits, and the same-era debuted Hall of Minerals and Gems at the American Museum of Natural History which I frequented as a child and young adult, THE PIT encourages a giving over to what Juhani Pallasmaa calls “the archaic senses” of hearing and touch in his 1996 book The Eyes of the Skin. Without sight – or explicit signage – the room provIdes ‘soft instruction’ through somatic experience; sit, lean, lay down, relax, stay longer than you otherwise might. The result is a room with no hard corners.
Visual Description:
coming soon
SATURN IN THE FOURTH HOUSE
silicone, thermoplastic, pigment, steel, silicone tubing, wire, hardware
9’ x 30” x 30"
2022
In Roman mythology, the god Saturn was the ruler of time, in Greek mythology, the god Khronos, meaning “time.” The same is true for our English word “chronic” or “persisting for a long time,” something ongoing. Saturn used to be the outermost visible planet so it showed us the bounds of the known universe. Therefore, it shows us limitation, restriction, things that take a long time to come into being. The fourth house in astrological house systems, sits at the base of one’s natal chart, a wheel that is originally determined by the date and time of one’s birth, and is involved with family, home, and maternal bonds. As I neared the end of my first Saturn Return, I was flooded by the immensity, precarity, nonlinearity, and deep desire wrapped up in growth. Of knowledge, of my want in this world, of home built, eroded, and rebuilt again.
Visual Description:
coming soon
NERVE IMPULSE
silicone, thermoplastic, pigment, mouth-blown glass, manipulated found object
36” x 12” x 12”
2022
NERVE IMPULSE came together over the course of several months in fevers, bedrest, chills, sweats, and pain flares. Encouraged by and reflecting on Donna Haraway’s 1992 essay “The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politic for Inappropriate/d Others” and Frank Herbert’s 1965 book “Dune,” I sought to weave notions of the othered outsider, the feared and misunderstood creature, and the internal body sensations linked to the instinctual reactions to both.
Visual Description:
coming soon