The Synthesis Project, 2018
The Integration of Feeling and Language
Surreal Extensions of the Self
in Ink and Watercolor
About
Everything seen and felt in this exhibit is a product of survival; in the desperation at the climax of wordless despair and hopelessness, there is opportunity to surrender to yourself with radical attentiveness without agenda. The first step from abstract to concrete is to give these veiled experiences a name: It. If approached with respect and care, It will talk to you and teach you as it trusts that you will listen. It is through this excruciating and humbling deconstruction that I am able to connect parts of myself that have been fractured from one another.
The cognitive and emotional precision and clarity that comes with emotionally threading needle after needle in a short span of time is both fiercely enthralling and brutally burdensome and isolating. It is wildly addictive and meaningful but cycles with extended periods of latency, restlessness, and exhaustion. Though at times healing, this process has felt largely harrowing and devastating. But it is the pockets of humor, usually absurd and closely related to grief, that move me through.
When I trust my inventions with myself, there is a gift that can be given and received that is more powerful than existential grief: a hug, that is still a hug, despite it all.
7x5 inch matte prints for sale
