Mending Mirrors

The practice of mending has been traditionally assigned to the feminine gender – and thus, devalorized. But in a context where we are slowly realizing the un-sustainability of our consumption/throwing away cycles, mending is a radical act of care.

The ‘mirrors’ I am mending are many facets of the same disco-ball. This gaze we lay on our bodies and faces is like the fly’s eyes, broken into fractals of internalized behaviours and patterns. I mend the reflective objects we use to understand and enter in relationship with ourselves; be they made of glass or pupils.

Identity is such a complex, often loaded issue. Most of us have a lot of healing to do around our appearance and being seen is often all we crave and fear at once, which is why it is crucial to find new, loving ways to look at ourselves and others. I wish to hold my gaze as a mirror in which one can contemplate their unique beauty, to hold a safe space in which to explore a different relationship to an often harsh inner vision. I aim to create a container in which to hold the pain and sadness we’re all carrying, a place for it to be alchemized into colors and lines to face and make peace with.

I truly believe that portraiture goes far beyond capturing someone’s likeness, but speaks of that space in between things, the liminal shifting frontiers between skins, souls, worlds and all that takes place there. The time exchanged together lingers and infuses the fixed lines and colors with a life of their own, telling the tale of the encounter, a moment captured slowly.

Portraits are a radical act of tending to our wounds around being seen and witnessed and can expand wildly our threshold of receiving love, both from ourselves and others. It speaks to our beauty and our capacity to perceive it in ourselves as it is mirrored by the gaze of a stranger.