“We shape our tools and then our tools shape us”. In Diego Velázquez’s ‘Las Meninas’ (1656), the artist is reflected inside the painting and the painting itself functions as an instrument reflecting its creator’s persona. Similar to Giotto’s ‘Stefaneschi Altarpiece’ (1320) where the triptych appears in the triptych, ‘Law of identity’ refers to my own work in the context of the work itself, utilising labour as a tool to express artistic identity. A concrete sculpture of my head is shattered and reassembled in the form of my head. The broken trowel damaged from the repeated activity is used as a crutch that holds the assembly in place. Everything is made of the material of failure. Trying to find support in the process, expression is treated both as a means of sustenance and subversion.
Being aware of the fragile, sculpture is established by the fragments indicative of successive repetitions, change and evolving through time. An analogy between the way the artist creates and destroys its own creation is visualised by fusing the smashed shards, creating self from destruction of self. More than a meditation on devastation, pieces of a puzzle are rearranged to obtain new denotation as a way to literally cement one’s image. A weak sense of identity translates to fragmented matter, forming a dynamic and unstable infrastructure, mutating in a persistent effort to maintain incompleteness. Representing vulnerability under the weight that crashes human existence, I investigate the construction of character, giving room to transformation through personal strength and weakness.
Do we know who we are? Piece explores the definition of the self, commenting on the potential of artwork to represent its originator efficiently. Examining intersections of artistic and scientific perception and inspired by Douglas Hofstadter’s research (‘Gödel, Escher, Bach’), formation depicts how identity can be defined through self-reference, extracting meaning of meaningless elements. Negotiating significance and purpose in artist’s efforts, work is repurposed in the work as an element of creative recursion, constant reflection and loop with no exit. A kind of ‘Droste effect’, artwork turns up in itself allowing its maker to be reflected in it and vice-versa. I am my work and my work is what it is.