The work examines seminal moments in which human consciousness loses grip of reality, the ego is repressed, and the self is blurred. The familiar evades and eludes us – as though in a dream, in a trance, or in a state of loss of sanity – and in its place emerges a primal and wild twilight zone of mirrors and sensations devoid of logic or order. Fantastic hybrid sculptures, full of references from the fields of architecture, archaeology, and art history, blend the mythical and cultic with the contemporary and futuristic, like a multicultural and timeless patchwork of mysticism, paganism, and minimalist design. The installation evokes intense human emotions, merging profound despair with the potential for spiritual uplifting, and examines the healing power of art and the transformative possibilities inherent therein.
The sculpture The Towed, one of four that comprise the installation, presents physical injury as an expression of mental anguish and the loss of self in liminal states of crisis and collapse. At the same time, it suggests possible redemption by a process of release and healing through an encounter with the adjacent sculptural ensemble. Inspired by the work of Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare (1781), it renders that image of a maiden in a state of sleep paralysis into a mattress-like object that has fingers with sharp fingernails. The latent terror of Fuseli’s painting is realized in this installation, its consequences very apparent: the floor and walls are wounded, with signs of desperate human-like clawing attesting to a struggle that has just ended. The preponderance of signs on the surface is a revealing record of violent eroticism.
The works Vase of the Seven Elders, The Chain of Acceptance, and The Swing of Longing appear in the installation as energetic mediation channels of cathartic power. Each contains symbols of a religious aspect that have been abstracted, and together they link the celestial with the earthly, providing relief for the lost soul. The unmediated encounter with them while the roaming about the theatrical-ritualistic space suggests to visitors to absorb the conscious change that can occur in the space between the mystical, the ecstatic, and the spiritual in a domain where corners are rounded and both the awake and the slumbering converge with the dream.
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