existential re-flux:

“To be” is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step

the underpinnings:

At its best, Existential Re-Flux is an illustration of impermanence, a demonstration of connection, and a memorialization of mourning. At its very least, Re-Flux is a personal self-exercise in letting go: of things we make, things we unmake, and the line separating construction and deconstruction. 

This “series” of three dozen charcoal portraits began with a simple impulse to celebrate and connect with people I’m grateful to inter-exist with. As clouds of charcoal dust settled on everything, I grew a hopeful vision of crafting a mini universe: one filled with inimitably loved individuals, each rendered with labor and care. Perhaps more crucially, I wanted the portraits to eventually return to a destined whole; so that together, they would embody a greater emblematic process rather than falling into a canonical fate of awkward immortalization. That’s where the smudging comes in.

Smudging, often cast as an act of destruction, operates here as a performance of empathic destruction. With the collective [de-]construction of realistic portraits into one messy expression, the portraits are guided from a state of delicate individuation into a Zen reminder of the illusion of separateness. Ultimately, A Mini Universe is a fluid attempt at illustrating the capacity within form for emptiness, the essential non-existence of everything.