Critical Annotation

Artist Dossier

In this online artist dossier, I have curated a collection of artists, texts, and theoretical sources that directly inform my current studio practice, particularly my tattoo-based project and installations that explore mental environments. My selection follows a consistent focus on themes of identity, emotional mapping, embodiment, and sensory interaction.

Several critical frameworks shape my understanding. Aurélie Wintsch’s notion of “stitching the self” has been especially influential in theorizing tattooing not merely as mark-making but as a form of reconstructing identity. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s theory of constructed emotion provides grounding for my use of materials to reflect subjective emotional states. Claire Bishop’s writing on affective installations supports my interest in creating emotionally immersive, participatory works.

The artists included—such as Julie Mehretu, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Hannah Wilke, and Sarah Sze—all reflect an expanded understanding of drawing, installation, and audience engagement. Their works resonate with my practice by navigating inner experiences through material or spatial means. For example, Mehretu’s fragmented lines mirror my own abstract linework in tattoos, while Gonzalez-Torres’ use of impermanence and participation aligns with my exploration of care and decay.

My choices are guided by a desire to bridge emotional depth with formal experimentation. I am particularly drawn to practices that balance vulnerability with structural clarity, and that address contemporary psychological conditions—especially those affecting youth—through sensory and symbolic language.

This dossier helps me critically reflect on the conceptual, emotional, and relational dimensions of my practice. Seeing these references side by side allows me to trace patterns in how I use the body as both site and subject, and how intimacy, trauma, and care are visually externalised. Ultimately, this blog acts as both archive and mirror—shaping and clarifying my current artistic inquiries.

Categories

Emotion, Perception, and the Brain Participation, Ritual, and Social Interaction Embodiment and Self-Identity Digital Media and Technological Interfaces Temporality, Memory, and Material Narratives

Art as Ecosystem: Pierre Huyghe and the Living Exhibition

Huyghe shows how art can function as a living system, not just a display. This supports my own push toward artworks that breathe, respond, and dissolve—mirroring the emotional volatility of our overstimulated, fragmented realities.

Care as Concept: Rirkrit Tiravanija and Relational Presence

Relational aesthetics gave me permission to value emotion, intimacy, and shared experience as core elements of practice—even when the work appears minimal.

Claire Bishop – “Installation Art and Affective Engagement,” 2012

Claire Bishop’s writings on affective installation art have been central to how I frame audience experience in my practice. In particular, her analysis of immersive works that create emotional resonance—not through storytelling, but through spatial and sensory presence—helped me re-evaluate how my own artworks interact with viewers.

Emotions Are Built, Not Found: Lisa Feldman Barrett and the Constructed Mind

Barrett’s work supports my belief that emotions are not universal truths but shaped encounters—making sensory art a fitting vehicle to explore them.

Hito Steyerl – How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File (2013)

Hito Steyerl is a contemporary media artist whose work explores digital images, surveillance, and the blurred boundaries between reality and virtuality. How Not to Be Seen is a satirical instructional video addressing invisibility and camouflage in the digital age, critically examining how visibility relates to power and control.

Memory and Loss: Felix Gonzalez-Torres – Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) (1991)

This piece shows how small, gentle actions in art can talk about big feelings. It taught me how to use materials to connect people through shared emotions.

Ritual, Marking, and Letting Go: Natascha Stellmach in Dialogue with Tattoo Practice

Stellmach’s work reframes art as an act of emotional release, not just representation. It strengthens my belief that tattooing can be ritual, reflection, and reconstruction—all inscribed through mark-making that is both physical and psychic.

Stitching Identity into Skin: Aurélie Wintsch and the Materialization of Self

Wintsch’s framework uses embroidery as a tactile, narrative method of identity work. In dialogue with this, I view tattooing as a form of psychological cartography—both intimate and public—where skin becomes a social and emotional record.

The Body as Archive: Hannah Wilke and Embodied Memory

Wilke’s fearless approach to embodiment empowers me to view tattooing not only as self-expression but as a collaborative act of memory and care.

The Medium Is the Message: Marshall McLuhan and the Architecture of Attention

McLuhan’s work lets me treat AR and digital media not just as platforms but as forms that are the message: fractured, fast, immersive, and deeply tied to how contemporary minds are wired.

Time as Material: Sarah Sze and the Sculptural Logic of Overload