Sense of Self is the first small installation that I put together at CSUN during my Spring '21 term. I used projectors to cast my photographs on black sheets that had been cut by me. These photos were compiled as three separate videos and a sound effect of a projector slide as they appear on the screen. I recently have been fascinated with the properties of light and how its almost ethereal quality can be portrayed in my work.
Link to view installation:
https://vimeo.com/555522250I often find that I am captivated by what constitutes human nature and where I fall into it. How I have no footing in the real world yet manage to experience it all at once. Why I am constantly burdened with my own mortality while still programmed to keep surviving. As all humans have before me, I have been placed in some sort of self-defining plight.
Did I forget my identity in the midst of it all or have I always lacked one? As conscious beings, are we obligated to question our very own bones and flesh? What happens when I lose the ability to recognize myself in the mirror? I put myself on display to examine these questions, many of which might not be answered.
Throughout my art, I pursue the ideas of substance abuse, personality disorders, sexual assault, and self-harm ideation. Over the past few years, these concepts have planted themselves in my life and have stolen much of it away. People are complex creatures that are still so very fragile as no one is exempt from anything, especially trauma.
Self-portraiture has recently struck me as being the most personal art I can make. I capture my own visions that get lost in space’s timeline by solidifying them into something tangible. Just as I think I have lost myself in my own deafening silence, I am brought back through my work.
