Embodiment

I have no experience of a bed of nails, nor of self-flagellation or any other ‘religious’ practices; my history and what I’ve learnt include no such actions. Self-inflicted pain, pleasure, guilt, sacrifice, relaxation, greed, meditation and contemplation of my own existence becomes apparent through my art-making. Steel letter punches transformed into bronze, too soft a metal to make them functional, are elevated to an aesthetic realm where writing method and texture of writing becomes more important than what is actually written. The act of writing and the ambivalence of written meaning, the head space required for writing down experiences I feel need to be written down, the meditative function of recollecting and writing, the way instant memories escape the rules of language, how describing events to myself clarify them for me, even though you were there. How reliant is your memory, how much does emotion affect memory, what do you choose to write down for an unknown reader, how much of your own mind ramblings do you hope no-one will ever read, nor imagine, who do you confer with, who is the you in my writing, thinking internally and recalling externally?

This piece is a picture of the algorithmic relationship between content, capturing and interpretation. Finding visual language to portray inexplicable personal thoughts and experience, everything affects us even if we try to live in isolation from it.

But the actual hammering of punches, one by one, time consuming, scarring the wood, wax and bronze in a meaningful way, is the most important activity. Meaning remains elusive. Each little bronze is a portrayal of a symbol by itself, but they take on different aspects when read together. Yet meaning is never disclosed. The loose fitting punches, each with its own small message of hope, need to be placed and re-placed every time to form coherent messages. Viewers are left with an open ended bed of fridge magnet words, a style of writing to compose their own messages. Isn’t it instant gratification of senses that leaves us without imagination and discredits the imperfection of the human hand?