Date of Submission

Spring 2020

Academic Program

Studio Arts

Project Advisor 1

Laura Battle

Abstract/Artist's Statement

At the beginning of this project, I found myself researching something I wasn't even sure existed. I was searching for a word or a phenomenon that explained an indefinable feeling that I have come across in my life. This feeling, which is so pronounced and yet invisible, causes me to question how it works, how it makes us feel things, what it is made of, when it is present and when it is not. I cannot access it intentionally, I only notice it when it is already happening.

My research oscillated between the scientific and the spiritual. I came across ideas including energetic communication, clairvoyance, and telepathy. Through this research, the central question I came to focus on was "What does it mean to feel 'connected' to someone?" While we can read facial expressions or 'body language,' to me, understanding another person's feelings goes beyond those physical indicators. While these feelings, when experienced, are so real they are almost palpable, they seem impossible to explain materially. Communication is understood through facial expression, voice, and bodily movement, but there is a subtle yet influential electromagnetic or energetic communication system that operates just below our conscious level of awareness. Energetic communication is an innate ability that heightens awareness and mediates important aspects of empathy and sensitivity to others. Our emotional state is encoded in the heart's magnetic field and communicated through the body into the external environment.

There are happenings all around us that are unseen; this project's interest lies in the ones that connect us to each other. For me, I imagine this phenomenon to exist in the physical space between two people, and although we cannot see it, it perhaps exists on an alternate plane or dimension. Everything regarding love happens there. Through my work, I am trying to answer all of the questions I have about this by visualizing how it operates, and simultaneously acknowledging that I do not and will not know what it is. This show is my attempt to understand my personal experience with this force.

All of my research came to no clear conclusion on what this is, and written words don't fully explain this indefinable feeling. My paintings do not either, but this place of curiosity and desire to understand is where I start all of my work. I work to visually articulate this subtle and invisible feeling which, in turn, leads me to explore other subjects such as isolation, longing, nature and love - but this invisible plane is where my work begins and stands.

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