Cut piece, 2023. shown at somers gallery as part of group exhibition ‘cut’.
sound, torched walkman, headphones.
they say the best way to disappear a body is to make sure it has no head and no finger prints
slice slice slice
chop chop chop
peel the onion
During the summer of 2015 I travelled to New York, along with some classmates, to perform in a gallery in the heart of Brooklyn. We were newly graduated ‘performance artists’. It was essential to be live in the work. Crucial to live our practice. Living this “live”-ness meant that I generally wouldn’t prepare anything to perform ahead of time, as it would be counter intuitive to the principles inherent in live work. This would often leave me with crippling anxiety.
When I arrived in New York, my excitement was tinged with a heaviness I couldn’t shake no matter how much artistic splendour surrounded me as I rattled through Chelsea or Tribeca. It was like carrying around a suitcase full of sadness. What was I going to perform? Where would I find the meaning? How would I be in the space? What would the space tell me to do? This is called being site specific.
In the days before the performance I spent my time drinking free milky coffees from a vending machine in ahostel. There was a crippling heat wave and the coffee was scorching. A classmate and I drank wine on the street to save money and my legs were perpetually dusty. You know it’s art to make a living when your art is in the moment! I was determined to embrace this opportunity but my depression grew like a stubborn weed, threatening to suffocate every ounce of joy from myself and the gallerist who had curated this show.
The night before the performance, I found myself seeking solace in a trendy diner in Williamsburgh after another session of drinking bottles of red on the street. I was hoping that a meal and some pleasant and good looking NY faces could somehow soak up my melancholy. The flickering lights and the tank full of lobsters offered a temporary distraction from my inner demons. Unfortunately, this didn’t last long. Fueled by what was a potent mix of despair and alcohol, I made a colossal mess.
In a moment of pure instinctive madness, I grabbed my peanut butter milkshake and flung it at the table behind me. I had attempted to spark up a conversation with the good looking bunch sitting there but was met with a sea of stony and disgusted stares. It wasn’t an act of rebellion or even a well-thought-out statement—it was just a stupid, drunken impulse because I hated them. The silence that followed was deafening, and shame engulfed me like a tidal wave. I slowly stood up and walked out of the diner. The moment I was on the street I ran as fast as I could, seeking refuge in the neon-lit chaos.
My legs soon were tired because I was that shaky wine drunk way and the adrenaline was leaving me. I stopped my jangling canter just outside the gallery. In that brightly lit space, I scoured the room for something to distract me from my own mess—something that could pull me out of this swirling vortex of self-loathing. Something that would inspire an action to repeat to present. To perform.
… and gleaming atop a blinding white plinth was a razor blade set in plaster...
In a desperate attempt to shed my skin, both literally and metaphorically, I snatched the blade. My hands trembling with equal parts fear and anticipation and awe of the concept. Cut cut cut. I sliced and peeledaway layer after layer of my skin, revealing something new, something shinier. Something more digestible.
Driven by an insatiable thirst for belonging in the art world, I continued this self-destructive journey. I was un-relentless. The performance of a lifetime. I skinned myself mercilessly, licking away parts of my identity, my practice like a gobstopper. Changing colours. Shrinking, shrinking until I was a minuscule size. I managed to stop myself just before I disappeared entirely but
in a twist of fate just when I had slowed the cutting down to consider the potential documentation of my action, I slipped through a drain like a backside of a fiver and plummeted into the sewer beneath.
There, in the murky underworld of NYC, I stumbled upon a group of tiny people who, like me, had shed their skins. They thrived in their smallness, rejecting the complexities that burdened them before. These borrower sewage people had formed their own little world, where unity and liberation reigned supreme. There is no weight of personas or pressure of expectation or reputation. There was no art there. Peace at last.