In my Fainting Party series women are shown in vulnerable poses. The edges of the figures break apart and there’s an uncertainty between where the interior body ends and the exterior space begins. Cancer disintegrates a sense of stability and the potential for further catastrophe is incessant. So, there is a constant negotiation between one’s self and their surroundings.

I portray this negotiation by pulling from art history. I appropriate the reclining nude in my work, however I repurpose her as fainting. The fainting pose symbolizes vulnerability, because the fainting body represents loss of control.

Fainting therefore signifies abject embodiment.

In my paintings, boundaries are blurred and skin and bones no longer act as protective shields. An impending collision between interior and exterior is forever present.

In my research doctors Waskul and Van der Riet state that,

“A person does not inhabit a static object body but is subjectively embodied in a fluid, emergent and negotiated process of being. In this process, body, self, and social interaction are interrelated to such an extent that distinctions between them are not only permeable and shifting, but also actively manipulated and configured. The body is embodied.”

The body is a vessel – a cultural product that is easily assaulted and penetrated, so the figure in my work is gestural. The loose lines imply bodily boundaries and the searching characteristic of my line work represents uncertainty. These gestural lines create gaps and openings in the frame work of the figure so, what is inside can come out and what is outside can come in.

In abject embodiment, the body repeatedly defies it’s own boundaries.

In my work I simulate a feeling of disorientation by including hints of a recognizable world that are tangled up with abstraction. The collision between realism and non-representation creates a disconnect between self and one’s surroundings.

The thing is that those who have never experienced abject embodiment should understand, is that it is we who have experienced it, cannot just let it go.

We deal with our bodies and negotiate our surroundings every day.

I paint to tell this story of a fluid, permeable and negotiated process of being.