Contenedor (El Cuerpo) (2022)

Styrofoam, cotton, blood, nickel plated steal. 10.75 l x 8.5 w x 12.5 h inch.

Contenedor (El Cuerpo), 2022, meditates on the process of animating the life force of a sculpture by augmenting it with parts of my own body. Using t-pins, I secure cotton swabs covered in blood onto the surface of a styrofoam wig head. Through a process of commitment, the blood is collected from various skin traumas; injuries, lacerations, and aggressive cystic breakouts that often inflame and break the surface of my skin. This sculptural exploration is an investigation on the body in relationship to the non-human and human, and how we coexists in a shared participation in living and dying.

Treating the blood as paint to finish staining the sculptures surface, I make a sculpture that is alive. Transfiguring the object with a bodily material into a being that evolves, ages, and expires. By puncturing the surface of the wig head with needles, I depict an increase and decrease in the power of my body and the body of the sculpture. This piece honors personal and collective conditions of living with chronic pain stored in a container(the body) that feels infected, and that suffers stress, anxiety, and trauma.