2021
In my mother tongue Tamil—which I am slowly beginning to lose—the word for pity
and the word for sin is the same (Pāvam). I am exploring the differences between typed
text and handwriting, and how the former disguises bureaucracy as a legible system.
While the aesthetics of bureaucracy inform my content and process, I often juxtapose them with the more personal materiality of the home and the book. Both the home and book are equated with relationships between language and the body. Each changes with the seasons—swelling, shrinking, breathing, and aging. The body, the house, and the book are all constructed through processes of layering and stacking: muscles stretched over bone, drywall attached to studs, pages nestled into one another. This stacked quality recurs throughout my work, reflecting various demands for proof in the form of paper stacks detailing my life. These systems exude hierarchical power and rely on expendability, impermanence, and categorization to maintain a permanent state of temporariness. This is further reflected in the fact that my work is usually ephemeral, modular, repurposed, and easily dismantled.
extruded word column in mom’s handwriting, CNC routed pink foam
12’ x 2’ x 2’
extruded word column in mom’s handwriting, CNC routed pink foam 12’ x 2’ x 2’
CNC routed die for 12’ extruded clay, mom’s handwriting
15” x 20” x 36”
CNC routed die for 12’ extruded clay, mom’s handwriting
15” x 20” x 36”
CNC routed pink foam and particle board, mom’s handwriting
15” x 20” x 43”
Acrylic on panel
12” x 12” each
Pāvam in Tamil
CNC routed drywall, pink foam, 2x4, vinyl siding, mom’s handwriting
CNC routed drywall, pink foam, 2x4, vinyl siding, mom’s handwriting