Mutable Self

About

The concept of self defies universal definition, rather it is itself defined by variability; shifting and morphing along with individual's interpretation of their own actualities as people find themselves situated within larger social, intellectual, and physical realms. The implications of technology in defining this sense of self dually create a complexity and authenticity that simply could not exist without the access and accountability permitted by the contemporary phenomenon of mechanized globalization. 

In the exhibition Mutable Self, artists utilize painting, new media, and sculpture techniques to reflect different facets of our identities, as they are shaped by our rapidly changing and interconnected contemporary world.

Canadian artist Jazmine Yerbury explores the idea of the digital artificial self, combining robotics and squishy, fleshy materials, DIY interactive robotic creations. In the installation Glitch Silhouette, Yerbury creates an interactive environment that allows the audience to experience uncanny aspects of digital self-representation between performativity, illusion, and memory. 

The political self in relation to the masses, its fluid state between passive subject and rebellious individuals, and the paradox of self-organization within isolated entities, are themes addressed in the works by Brazilian painter Diego Miguel. Miguel traces the medialization of this new political self as ideologically disembodied entity, activated by affect, grouping and dispersing as unpredictably and irregularly as a swarm. 

Featuring expansive canvases, Taiwanese painter Chueh ChiaoHan explores the existential tension between desire and the transience of life. Loosely executed and associative, the figurative works reflect shifts in her personal perception, as it has been both reflected by others and more intimately conceived by herself. ChiaoHan’s paintings portray the complexity of human relationships, social pressures on the individual, personal insecurities, the need for validation, anxieties, empowerment, attraction. Her Bataillean depiction of desire pushing against the constraints of civilization presents with a unique imagery that is simultaneously transgressive and innocent.

The conceptual sculptures of Syed Shoaib Mahmood question the unstable nature of attraction and beauty itself. In his often volatile installations, the self and its often problematic relation to others is portrayed distorted, mirrored or otherwise fragmented, filtered through various layers of artifice and representation. The unstableness of even the ideal is reflected in a sentence found in one of Mahmood’s text works: “If you look at something beautiful long enough, it may just become ugly.”