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The Dams are Broken
2024 acrylic paint and black rubber |
The Dams are Broken oscillates between containment and release, shifting fluidly between abstract and recognizable forms. I explore the body as a fragile vessel—a container of identity that delineates the self from the world beyond. Yet within it stirs a restless desire: a hunger to rupture those boundaries and let identity spill forth, dissolving into something limitless and unconfined.
My process began with an ordinary moment: watching my niece carefully color within the thick black outlines of her coloring book. What struck her as structure struck me as confinement. Those outlines morphed in my mind into the bars of a cage, stirring a deep sense of isolation and longing. I began to imagine breaking through those rigid boundaries, cracks forming and liquid spilling through, uncontainable. This vision led me to reflect on the tension between confinement and release, the push and pull of holding back versus letting go. Boundaries, though protective, can suffocate; breaking them, though freeing, invites chaos. In this duality, spills take on complex meanings—both dread and catharsis, swinging between slapstick absurdity and profound grief.
In the installation, this tension comes alive: a nightstand lies toppled on the floor, its drawer spinning wildly into the air. A broken kite tumbles into water, dissolving into the form of a fish. These spills ask an unanswerable question: do they mark a moment of apocalyptic collapse, or a glorious abandonment?
Each figure in the installation is enveloped by a constellation of objects. To create these portraits, I visit each subject’s home, capturing images of their belongings—intimate fragments of their daily lives—and carefully render them in acrylic. These arrangements become portraits, not just of people, but of the spaces they inhabit and the items that shape them. Belongings, like a second skin, merge with the body, embedding us deeper into our physical selves. Yet these possessions also move in cycles of accumulation and release, objects endlessly collected, cherished, and discarded.
These portraits reflect the overwhelming density of modern life, where we are bound to the material world by the sheer weight of what we own. Each figure in the installation embodies this tension, poised to resist or submit to their environment. Some rise, buoyed above the swell of their surroundings, while others sink, dissolving into the accumulated mass of their possessions.
Throughout this installation, characters are positioned in states of constant flux—rising, falling, suspended between elevation and descent. These shifting postures mirror the psychological, spiritual, and physical states of existence that inform both the figures and my larger creative process. Psychologically, I draw upon Freud’s concept of the “oceanic feeling,” a state in which the boundaries between self and the external world dissolve, creating an overwhelming sense of oneness. When these mental barriers break, the figures either collapse into formlessness or stretch toward self-actualization, struggling to re-establish their individual identity.
Spiritually, the oceanic feeling evokes a deep connection to the universe, a moment of unity with all that exists. In these moments of dissolution, there is a brief, poignant fusion with the infinite. Physically, the figures wrestle with the fragility of their bodies—either maintaining their integrity or surrendering to decay. In some parts of the installation, paint takes on the viscous, rich appearance of blood or mimics the texture of skin, blurring the line between body and environment. One scene shows an elderly man decomposing into the earth, his back burdened by an extension cord that morphs into a tangled web of veins. Nearby, the red liquid spilling from a takeout cup leaks into a stream of blood.
These characters inhabit a precarious liminal state, fluctuating between transcendence and immanence— some rising higher on the wall, others sinking into the weight of the tangible world, irrevocably tethered by gravity. While fragmentation and dissolution dominate the work, they also gesture toward a peculiar liberation: the freedom that emerges when the wholeness of self is surrendered.
Photo credit: Rachel Kurzma
My process began with an ordinary moment: watching my niece carefully color within the thick black outlines of her coloring book. What struck her as structure struck me as confinement. Those outlines morphed in my mind into the bars of a cage, stirring a deep sense of isolation and longing. I began to imagine breaking through those rigid boundaries, cracks forming and liquid spilling through, uncontainable. This vision led me to reflect on the tension between confinement and release, the push and pull of holding back versus letting go. Boundaries, though protective, can suffocate; breaking them, though freeing, invites chaos. In this duality, spills take on complex meanings—both dread and catharsis, swinging between slapstick absurdity and profound grief.
In the installation, this tension comes alive: a nightstand lies toppled on the floor, its drawer spinning wildly into the air. A broken kite tumbles into water, dissolving into the form of a fish. These spills ask an unanswerable question: do they mark a moment of apocalyptic collapse, or a glorious abandonment?
Each figure in the installation is enveloped by a constellation of objects. To create these portraits, I visit each subject’s home, capturing images of their belongings—intimate fragments of their daily lives—and carefully render them in acrylic. These arrangements become portraits, not just of people, but of the spaces they inhabit and the items that shape them. Belongings, like a second skin, merge with the body, embedding us deeper into our physical selves. Yet these possessions also move in cycles of accumulation and release, objects endlessly collected, cherished, and discarded.
These portraits reflect the overwhelming density of modern life, where we are bound to the material world by the sheer weight of what we own. Each figure in the installation embodies this tension, poised to resist or submit to their environment. Some rise, buoyed above the swell of their surroundings, while others sink, dissolving into the accumulated mass of their possessions.
Throughout this installation, characters are positioned in states of constant flux—rising, falling, suspended between elevation and descent. These shifting postures mirror the psychological, spiritual, and physical states of existence that inform both the figures and my larger creative process. Psychologically, I draw upon Freud’s concept of the “oceanic feeling,” a state in which the boundaries between self and the external world dissolve, creating an overwhelming sense of oneness. When these mental barriers break, the figures either collapse into formlessness or stretch toward self-actualization, struggling to re-establish their individual identity.
Spiritually, the oceanic feeling evokes a deep connection to the universe, a moment of unity with all that exists. In these moments of dissolution, there is a brief, poignant fusion with the infinite. Physically, the figures wrestle with the fragility of their bodies—either maintaining their integrity or surrendering to decay. In some parts of the installation, paint takes on the viscous, rich appearance of blood or mimics the texture of skin, blurring the line between body and environment. One scene shows an elderly man decomposing into the earth, his back burdened by an extension cord that morphs into a tangled web of veins. Nearby, the red liquid spilling from a takeout cup leaks into a stream of blood.
These characters inhabit a precarious liminal state, fluctuating between transcendence and immanence— some rising higher on the wall, others sinking into the weight of the tangible world, irrevocably tethered by gravity. While fragmentation and dissolution dominate the work, they also gesture toward a peculiar liberation: the freedom that emerges when the wholeness of self is surrendered.
Photo credit: Rachel Kurzma