Project Statement
My thesis project, Ordo Ab Chao (Order Out of Chaos), includes four paintings, three sculptures, and three video installations about love and desire.
The Divine Fruits (2022) is a 12 x 24 inch triptych oil painting on canvas. I often use fruits as a metaphor for desire. It shows the cycle of life that is formed, ripened, and eventually returned to the soil. I make intuitive decisions that result in gestural and painterly brushstrokes to present images that connote love, vitality, and clandestineness. I select round fruits to imply ‘completeness’ or ‘fullness’ but also ‘emptiness’.
The Game (2022) is a 48 x 96 inch diptych oil painting. I juxtapose on top of a chess board fragmented bodies, fruits, and various elements related to sex and desire. In my work, I portray game-like situations where individuals constantly make decisions to deal with circumstances such as coincidence, conspiracy, and uncertainty. This scenario is also depicted in my sculpture, Neither Dice Nor Cherry (2023). Through juxtaposing different elements of desire, I am asking myself where these desires are coming from and how we perceive it. I look at them from different viewpoints by varying the way I paint, paying particular attention to the value of colors and texture. In my sculpture, I highlight certain elements with protrusion but obscure others. Most things seem to be symmetrical, but they are not. It's very hard to tell which element is in a higher position of hierarchy in The Game (2023), especially with the exuberant fruits dominating the canvas. In both The Game (2023) and Neither Dice Nor Cherry (2023), I’m suggesting that the viewer thinks about this question: “Are you the one who controls your desires or are you controlled by them?”
What Comes Around Goes Around (2023) and The Fountain (2023) are both 60 x 72 inch oil paintings on canvas. What Comes Around Goes Around (2023) expresses the cycle of desire, expressed through the circular shape of a clock. Our time is limited and life is a one-off event. Time flows in one direction, from the past to the present and then the future. We are constantly making decisions about what we desire. What if I make a different choice at a certain moment? What would the consequence of that decision be? I’ve included figures and motifs from Greek mythology to suggest ideas of possibility, greed, self-control, and punishment.
The Fountain (2023) is also 60 by 72 inches, an oil canvas. Instead of time, it deals with the idea of space in desire. The title is a metaphor for desire that never ceases in an endless loop of feeding itself. I created an undefined space where things appear to be ambiguous and somewhat surreal.
My sculptures and videos allow me to think about ideas away from the two dimensional. Objet Petit A (2023) is a reference to the Apple of discord in Greek mythology. A golden apple inscribed with the words ‘for the fairest female’ which Eris, the goddess of discord, tossed in the midst of the feast of the gods at the wedding. This provoked a dispute among three goddesses (Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera) which eventually led to the Trojan War. The title is inspired by Jacques Lacan’s concept of the unattainable object of desire, the “A” representing apple.
In To The Desired (2023), I combine references of semi-forgotten myth and contemporary object; The figures are from The Three Graces in Greek mythology, representing youth, beauty, and elegance. The larger-than-life key suggests hope and possibility.
Materiality is important in my sculptures. The tactility of materials, e.g., roughly smeared surfaces, emphasizes my desire to evoke the traditions of Greek and Roman sculpture while subverting the classical connotation of perfection. All my sculptures are thinly painted and reveal some of the natural surfaces of the casting. Off-white paint indicates "purity" and "vulnerability." The tension between imperfect, cracked surfaces, and white-washed paints creates an ambivalent look and feel.