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.
Encircling the mother-carcass sculpture left over from Lupercal, the performer dons a mask and a wearable piece titled Obituary Garment, appearing like an actor in an opera. Unfired clay body parts are broken apart, the blood within used to fill the outlines of bodies drawn on the panels of the garment. The attempt to transfer life between forms grows restless and violent, the spillage and rubble forming its own compositions. Despite the vessels' (the corpse-like clay objects and the costume) longing to contain the blood, these compositions defy containment in the of impressions of movement itself and of the "actor"'s own skin. Eventually there is no liquid left to redistribute, and the action of doing so is left to decay or be preserved.
In the aftermath of the performance, the remains of the clay pieces and the stained garment become actors themselves - coming together as an installation of artefacts. The body of the actor here transcends physicality, present instead as a never-ending performance of blood, stains and spatiality.
