(2022) Psoriasis Surrender is the final work I submitted for the exhibition from the residency As Above So Below (2022). It uses felt appliqué on a ready-made garment to map the plaques of psoriasis on my torso and my back, exposing what I hide under my clothes. The work also acts as a record of the state of my skin at that particular point in time. The photos show me ‘wearing’ my skin as well as the ‘shed’ skin’, symbolising what I want to discard. Many times, I feel like removing my skin because the discomfort is such.
The work is accompanied with the texts of two authors:
Psoriasis keeps you thinking. Strategies of concealment ramify and self-examination is endless. You are forced to the mirror, again and again; psoriasis compels narcissism, if we can suppose a Narcissus who did not like what he saw.
John Updike, excerpt from At War with My Skin
I am you
Diane di Prima, excerpt from Ave
and I must become you
I have been you
and I must become you
I am always you
I must become you
Although the content of the work created during the residency was not specifically about skin, I believe skin was present in the work throughout, from the emotional perspective as well as the idea of a disease that gets passed on from generation to generation.
In previous explorations, I used ceramic pieces to represent the feeling of skin.
THE SKIN PROJECT 