Before During After (It Happened)

Before During After (It Happened), 2023

Sequence of three durational live performative drawings

Before During After (It Happened) negotiates my experience of assault, recovery and the socio-political structures that govern the translation of women’s identity and acts of violence towards them. The transformative journey is captured in three live acts of action drawing and performative erasure, that facilitates a visceral interrogation of memories of the act as it happened. Expressive mark making using chalk pastel, graphite, and charcoal on the wall poetically tunes into the bodily, sensory, and gestural responses, openly liberating the disclosure of the act and validating my fate. In that moment, the heavier, weightier marks entangle and overcome the vibrancy of the first act; the drawing is more forceful as their actions smother self-worth. In the aftermath, feeling shameful and exposed, traces of the affected drawing lament behind the wash of intentful erasure. The artist caught up in the journey is inflicted with spatters of paint animating her face and body, a manifestation of the trauma endured.

22.08.13, 2023

Digital video | Colour | Audio
2min 28sec

Video footage of the drawing process, captured in the first-person perspective, is reworked to create a temporal experience that activates the mark making and transforms past memories into an active phenomenon haunted by the natural sounds and bodily gestures of the proximal drawing process.