THE ONLY WAY OUT IS THROUGH
2023 (in progress), Spray paint on stencil film, floral grid. pictured areas: 22x22x10” and 13x15x25”, Individual flowers 3x3x3”
The finished size of this installation is site specific.
A large-scale project currently in process, these flowers are a twisted menagerie, giving visual expression to the dangers of gathering our problems around us and keeping them close. They’re intended to form an overwhelming wave, covering every available wall and ceiling surface, forming undulations, arches and overhangs. The growth will continue onto the floor, making it almost impossible to walk a narrow path through the sprawl. They will likewise cover objects placed within the space, engulfing them in an inescapable, choking force of terrible beauty.
While our anxieties are a negative force, many people can help but self-identify with their issues. By giving these burdens visual expression and drawing attention to this underlying tension, this immersive installation encourages viewers to examine their relationship with the direction of their own emotional energies.
Scripted Arabic words for worries and burdens form the heads of flowers. Cut, then brightly painted, their stems and leaves are sculpted using rough-edged wire. Overall the effect is bright and attractive, yet the underlying metal structure is barbed with thorns. The flowers represent the dangers of becoming our worries and letting them overtake us. They manifest the gentle balance between beauty and pain, benefit and drawback, disguising hardship with falsity.
Words used here are Despair, Anxiety, Distraction, Diversion, Doubt, Hope, Love, Lonliness, Desperation, Caring and Infatuation. Each is a burden in its own way.