ECDYSIS
remnants of old lives, relinquished bodies and beliefs
exhibition
BSA Project Space
2020
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image 1: installation view: rear walls: Together, 2019/2020, glass, aged slate, cast glass, charcoal, painted steel supports, 8 elements: each element approximately 9 x 43 x 43 cm; centre: Held, 2020, nickel-plated steel, wax, rope, cotton rope, stainless steel, aged silk, 330 x 127 x 67 cm;
right wall: Contact, 2020, silk, charcoal, coconut oil, 300 x 140 cm; right foreground: Amatus sum, 2019/2020, aged steel with inked surface, glass, charcoal, 40 x 90 x 90 cm
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image 2: installation view: rear wall: Willing, 2019, bisque-fired Raku, rubber, galvanised steel, ink, 9 elements: 55 x 32 x 22 cm each; centre: Held, 2020, nickel-plated steel, wax, rope, cotton rope, stainless steel, aged silk, 330 x 127 x 67 cm
image 3: Ripe, 2020, aged glass, charcoal (from Cobargo bushfires), 2 elements: 0.5 x 35 x 30 cm each
image 4: Together (detail)
Photography credit: Michelle Eabry
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My practice to date has given focus to transformative processes: movement, growth, the effects of the elements and time.
These explorations undertook observations of the physical world: excursions of my psyche inspired by what I experienced externally.
With this project I have challenged myself to turn inward. It is an extension of my ongoing field of research; it continues to investigate transformation and transitional states.
However, the search is within to understand what mechanisms of growth, healing or even harm occur via the beliefs we create from our experiences.
In previous research, I became aware of the concept of a ‘screen of consciousness’ onto which is filtered the sensory information we receive based on pre-existing self- and world-views. This process is part of evolutionary efficiencies made to prevent our consciousness from overloading. As this filtering is happening constantly and requires a level of vigilance that the waking mind cannot accommodate alongside thought, it is handled by the sub- or unconscious, interpreting our reality from some unknown time in utero.
Hence, many of the decisions we make are directed by very old information, collected and stored in the belief systems held by the unconscious. It is fairly common to be unclear why we made certain choices or to realize later that a level of reaction to something was out of proportion with the circumstances. This was likely provoked by an old story: the subconscious, our ever-present survival partner, had gone into protection mode.
Old occurrences, long forgotten or many times revised in our memories, are often stored in our bodies too, at a muscular and cellular level. By giving them expression in physical form, I hoped to perform a catharsis of those body-stored beliefs: a shedding like crabs and cicadas in ‘ecdysis’. As the process of their making was both physical and intuitive, guided by a sense for materials, it is possible that some stories are made manifest without ever crossing the screen of consciousness, bypassing conscious awareness and finding expression in material reality. The resultant works are not didactic; there is no finite interpretation for what finds form. I enjoy ambiguity, allowing the viewer’s experience and personal reflection to be engaged.