THE FLESH OF ALL THINGS 2021

In fulfilment of a Post-graduate Diploma in Fine Arts at Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland University.

The space was painted in a glowing hue with an eclectic range of artworks ‘emitting’ their stories from a combination of both abstract and explicit forms. Titled The Flesh of All Things, it explores Merleau-Ponty’s ideas of spatial, physiological, and energetic perceiving. 

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Each of these works is a world unto itself awaiting expansion, in a shared context. A pile of cold bronze pieces is in fact the negative shapes of a warm embrace between the artist and her daughter; clean white paper is violently torn and lit from behind revealing textural tranquility; a female form made of ever-soft modelling clay wears each finger mark that pushed her as far backwards as she could go without falling; a sweet pile of ruby-toned Ashoka Dharmachakra candies tempts us with easy answers and the 'one-a-day' promise of inner peace; a 1950's purse-full of middle finger candles points to the 'bare essentials' for women trapped in embedded patriarchal norms; and a humble rag, the waste product of creative pursuits, is re-contextualised as an artwork in itself – the epitome of happy accidents.

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The show was cancelled at the last minute due to Covid lockdown restrictions, but was resurrected the following year by fifteen enterprising students who took it upon themselves to get 'seen'.

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