The Enfolding Face is a series of live performance works which reference mythological/traditional motifs, theatrical aesthetics, Butoh and the gothic in order to place the primal, desperate and erotic cycle of birth and death inherent to human existence within the physicality and emotional traces of the body. The series is accompanied by a collection of supporting works including photographic prints and sculptural objects, and their presence as independent works serve to expand the narrative of the project into a broader cross-disciplinary space.
The final act of this project continues a horrific transcendence beyond material forms. With a red pit in the earth as a signification of both womb and grave, the performer, taking the appearance of a mummified "bog body", once again writhes in an embodied state of simultaneous birth and death. The Dissolution Rite itself, however, only exists as a low-fi video recording played on endless loop - this self-fossilising between-state stretched out toward eternal re-representation through the abyss of the digital. The only physical evidence of this performance exists in the presentation of the filthy bandages worn. These bandages retain the shape of the artist's body, but appear withered and lifeless compared to the corrosive and bloodied imagery of the video. The Enfolding Face "concludes" as an open ending of decayed physicality and a continuously re-birthing representation: a never-resolved dance of body and remains.
