In this work, I pressed a large rubber hose loop into the surface of the panel so that it may evoke a fetus or a figure curled in the fetal position.

Life, as we know it, requires an enclosed form—a boundary separating an interior from an exterior. It needs a body of some kind, though that body may take infinitely varied shapes. Within it, organs are folded, bent, and curved, compressed into a limited space and filling it to the brim. Yet the body is not shaped solely from within. It is also molded by external forces, adapting to the constraints of its environment—whether physical, social, or psychological.

Presentation video | Work in progress video

In these works, I use loops of rubber hose to create imprints in moist filler. The loops are pressed into the surface of the panel and held in place by a raised edge surrounding the format.

The elasticity of the rubber introduces a tension into the forms. When I use rubber hose as a drawing tool, I see it as a metaphor for language. Language, too, is elastic. Words and images influence and distort one another depending on how they are arranged. A sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissection table mean something different together than they do in any other context.

The elasticity of language also creates tension—something that can be experienced as either beauty or discomfort. Yet we tend to assume that, after being stretched or bent, language returns to a natural or ideal state. Psychoanalytic theory might describe this belief as belonging to the Imaginary register.

We need language to be elastic because language is inseparable from life. Its resilience lies in the ability to maintain a coherent form while adjusting to the environment. Without this elasticity, both language and life would be far more vulnerable to the entropy of the world.

In this subdivision of the Rubber Hose Drawings, I connect the loose ends of the hose, creating a closed loop—the topological shape of a torus. The imprints of the hose make lines enclosing an area and separating it from its surroundings. A body, if you will. All organic life forms are bounded systems, however malleable they may be. They are flexible yet vulnerable, adapting to internal and external forces within the limits defined by their own material properties. 

Res Ipsa is a compilation of works made by an act shaping the filler once it is prepared inside the frame. The works thus function as a recording device and give a statement of the event taking place while the filler was still wet.

Res Ipsa is Latin for "the thing itself" and is part of the juridical term "Res ipsa loquitur" (the thing speaks for itself), used when an injury or accident in itself clearly shows who is responsible, such as an instrument left inside a body after surgery.