Shiny surfaces always attract me, and I’ve been using reflections in my work for some time, whether it’s painting on perspex and glass, using metallic pigments or glazes, or ultimately mirrors as I am doing now.
I had this idea about working with mirrors and water in a video piece I filmed just prior to coming to Portugal, then when I arrived here and had to go into lock down, I found some broken mirrors on the street going home and grabbed them. I spent 2 months alone in an apartment, during which time those broken mirrors became a type of gateway for me. A way to engage with a moving body in my isolation and a way of experimenting with my own body image. That they were broken has added an interesting angle, as it suggests a shattering of an idealised image whilst also implying damage and violence.
Mirrors have so much symbolism; They present an incredibly rich territory to explore. Obviously, there is the idea of vanity, so often associated with women, who are expected to be beautiful and care about their appearance whilst also being castigated for being vain. The image of the young woman and the mirror is commonly used in Vanitas paintings as a warning against a focus on worldly beauty and pleasure. Therefore, this connection with the woman and the mirror is one I am very aware of.
There’s the ancient occult symbolism, a mirror as a gateway to other worlds, but also as a tool, both for self-knowledge as well self-undoing. Stare in a mirror long enough and you will begin to feel dissociated from your own image.
I’m also interested in Lacan’s ideas around the Mirror phase, and the fragmented self which examines the notion that we can never truly see ourselves and depend on mirrors and reflection, both real and metaphorical in order to piece a concept of ourselves together.
The experience during lock down really enhanced my fascination with our digital selves, our avatars, how we use them to self-mythologise and how these digital versions can also almost develop an identity of their own. This duplicate of ourselves, a kind of mirror image of ourselves, is one we can try to control and distort.