isolation space is a visual series that expresses the artist’s relationship to the space that she occupies during her pandemic quarantine period. the work captures simulated environments that represent the artist’s mental state as she embraces the reality that her bedroom is where she has spent- and will perpetually continue to spend- the majority of her time. this piece explores how the same space occupied by a single person can change over a period of time, and how it can change the person who resides within it. in isolation, the artist utilizes her cramped 8 ft x 7 ft bedroom as a place both of escape and of entrapment.
isolation space combines photogrammetric scanning and 3d modeling to create three similar yet separate environments. all are representations of the artist’s bedroom, but each individual space has its own unique atmosphere. the visuals for this project are based loosely upon a series of “isolation texts” that the artist has written during quarantine. the nine images selected to be presented are based upon texts 1, 4, and 6: withdrawal, awakening, and decay.
withdrawal
hidden away between 4 soft walls
heavy and hot is the air around me
it's hard to breathe
shutter my narrow windows
crawl beneath my bed
burrow under the unswept floorboards
you weave a shawl to bundle my body
a shivering frame bound in a chrysalis of wool
smelling solidly of cedar and stone
wrapped and trapped in a secret
sit here beside me now
let’s forget each other in this cocoon
awakening
i wake in a speckled beam
to shimmering dust in the air
to that little dark glass-and-metal mirror
it barks at me with buzzing blue light
turn its face flat to the sheet
turn my gaze towards the east
staring at that brilliant golden square
it blinds me with hot yellow light
and dazzles me as i lay languidly
i shut my burning eyes
a hot tear slithers down my cheek
blood pulsing through my sun-seared eyelids
a pure, most painful red
i succumb to the heat
ignore the metal mirror protesting beside me
let the rushing red river wash over me
lids squeezed shut until they grow cool
peering gingerly through tangled lashes
the golden light has departed
bedroom once again gray
the cold glow of the mirror beckons me now
decay
five square meters keep me captive
i can feel the walls inching closer
burdened with bedclothes
weakened by solitude
i surrender to my surroundings
blankets meld to my frame
the soft threads tangle round my toes
weaving a rope up my spine
they nest in my hair like little snakes
lungs inflate, and they breathe with me
my gentle bones sink deeper down
i lose myself in a cotton fortress as dust settles above
layers of dirt from all the days i lived
the sediment builds steadily
the bulges of my body become a rolling landscape
houseplants creep up the bedposts
thin white roots reaching down into my mattress
vines coiling and curling across my skin
dropping spores in my chest- i’ll nurse the saplings
soon i’ll be a garden
