exhibitions > 09.25.10 - 11.20.10

Eliza Swann
Eliza Swann

My work is concerned with interdisciplinary investigations that utilize scientific and mystical methods of inquiry, as being complementary rather than contradictory, with an emphasis on the correlation between the human form and theories of space and time. The use of figurative images in my work takes in to account that for centuries and across many cultures the body was believed to mirror the cosmos in miniature, and was used to illustrate certain theological ideas by comparing the elements contained within the universe with the organs of the body, demonstrating their interdependence and mutual reinforcement and restraint. Using various mediums I have explored the language of the human body in an attempt to illuminate the traditional Hermetic axiom "as above, so below", and the view that we harbor the energies of the planets and stars within us.

In experimenting with the the body as philosophy in a parallel form my studio practice has shifted it's focus to performance based photography, sculpture, and video in constant remembrance of the following phrase by Antonin Artaud, "In our present state of degeneration it is through the skin that metaphysics must be made to re-enter our minds."