the imagined, the lived, the uncanny

window frame (found), one-sided mirror, LED lights, inkjet prints
32.5 in x 20.5 in

Walls. Silence. Gestures. Rituals. Uncertainty. The uncanny. The cuckoo. They all live here.

My work starts with thinking about the body through the private spaces it occupies and leaves behind. Over the past few months, I have been collecting objects from bathrooms and other private spaces, including shower cubicles, mirrors, sinks, tubs, a couple of fixtures here and there, not knowing what would become of them, but drawn to them simply because they caught my attention. I collect these objects from people’s homes, travelling across the London boroughs and looking (a tad bit) stupid, but normal enough not to get stares.

The objects I find are often old and discarded, new and unneeded, almost saved from the skip, their destinies rewritten. I let them sit in my studio for months, sometimes days, enjoying the layers of marks, earth, fingerprints, limescale. Sometimes the space decides what happens to the object, the interventions I make, additions and subtractions of dust, water, soap (or the closest things to them?) and I let the materials naturally settle and exist.

I keep thinking about the space we occupy, how the soul holds the body together, how it places us in this current point in time, how this very body leaves its traces in all its ephemera.

I’ve taken these objects and created a space for them, a space that belongs here and not quite at the same time.

I invite you to imagine a body. It could be yours, someone you love, someone no longer here? Imagine this body walking across the space, catching the reflections you are able to see and perhaps almost miss.. Where does it end and where does it begin? How much of it can you feel? What is it thinking? What does it want?

What do you want?

a series