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Gerwyn Davies

In an age of endless self-imaging, these works explore the expanded potentials for self-presentation that emerge on the stage of the digital image. Combining traditional costume making, studio staging, and digital interventions, the figure is unmoored from conventional representation and an inventory of synthetic selves assembled. Bodies are adorned and choreographed for the lens, their glistening, textured surfaces allure and entice while their hefty costumes distort and conceal. The double bind of a figure both conspicuous and nowhere to be seen, hiding in plain sight, triggers the work’s investment in queering the act of representation and renegotiating the terms of visibility. Adopting the excessive aesthetics of Camp, these works explore the potentials for performative self-presentations to become queer cocoons, inside which, artists creatively redistribute their bodies to crystallize new formations.

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