Chartreuse

Six woodblocks, each 20cm x 16.5cm, 2016

Fragmenting the body into sections of experience, mindfulness exercises are now commonly suggested across the breadth of mental illness treatment. This series responds to the technique’s inherent hijacking of a Cartesian split between our minds and bodies in its paradoxical search for harmony between sensory fact and emotional experience.

Correspondingly, this series served to illustrate a short story based on a mortician’s introduction to her trade and the modern American tradition of cosmetic intervention. As a corpse is made over to look alive, the split between the corporeal reality and immaterial identity is stretched.

“Look down at your wrists and realise how autonomous you are from your body. In primary school they would tell you to feel your tongue in your mouth. (…) It was a dumb thing to do, in youth, to paint peachy skin instead of yellows and greens. That was the idiot child within you, using the seven colours that came in the box. “

Chartreuse was made into several forms, including a limited zine.

To read the accompanying story, click here

Photographs: Rory Gillen