Below is the ideation and outcome sheets for my first solo exhibition ‘Metamorphosis’. Within a personal allegory that takes elements from the Book of Genesis, Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis.
Man awakens, Alone, Deformed, Fingertips imbued with the power of creation, needing practice to form true life.
With the palms of his hand, the Roach can turn material into flesh, but his work remains lifeless without a foundation of internal confidence and a truly blank slate.
Below are the Ideation documents and research from which I conducted the conceptualization of this series. For those seeking more details, feel free to engage with the pages below.
Poetry and Short Story
This is a collection of some of the accompanying text I created while ideating this body of work, it allowed me to reflect and develop my ideas without needing to visualize them outside of descriptive writing. Poetry echoes the themes within my Metamorphosis, and Fiction became my tool to document the story behind the paintings for those looking to discover the deeper meaning of my work as well as my influences and thought process.
Ode to Imaginative Fear, Thoughts from Beds Miles to Minutes Apart (Dwelling)
The boy often dwells.
Whispers from Stapled String-Lights
across the nursery no longer
Lifts his socked feet, comforter swinging beneath.
Now, twice swaddled, defended well
twig scraped pane, periphery cloth contour
Echoes, Umbra
Torpere
The boy now dwells with intent.
Hush from Shuddered Cell-Portholes
pretending of something to silence
Rising to face it, stimulations of a hungry perception
Now, from bed unbundled, soles stabilize
pneumatic creakings cry, towels shine pelt-like
The Lack of, Yet sense that
I, Honos
I dwelled for longer in bed.
Reminiscing last’s moonlit adventure,
how a friend returned quite prominent
Ascending, through cornfield clearing to oak-enshadowed incline
Then, I would’ve rendezvoused in protective thread.
uncertain steps lead anxious inspiration
A pause, after a sound out of place.
A shape unfamiliar, squinting of doubtful interpretation.
Singing, cutting the silence. Naked, needless of light.
I find myself, the boy: Dwelling
Ever inspired by my senses.
Orbital Decay in Waking (The Fall)
I cocoon, in this Exosphere, queen sized.
You are numb to its pull, activate the orange button:
9 more minutes I orbit, facing the speckled void.
Here, I shed my molecules. Synthetic Geese and Polyester,
which holds within the heat of a dying son.
Naked exposure, the vacuum’s chill demands exodus.
I roll into the patch of wet heat left by my sleeping body,
Shoulders tucked, facedown like a remora to seek refuge.
Silence it, as it roosters, and orbit once more.
I smother myself in this Thermosphere.
Solar winds blow steam off my back,
I turn again to cook my sides evenly, rotisserie.
Sunspot’s absence informs one too many revolutions.
I plummet, suspended in pure subzero, engulfed in this Mesosphere.
Re-entering paralytic, face up like a meteoric tortoise.
Accept its collision, sleep to extinction, become Mesozoic.
I rotate again in resistance, adrenaline shocking my skin to a boil.
My personal heat shield.
Dust-bunnies leap up my nostrils as I dive headfirst to carpet,
Palms and Knees like landing gear, brace for impact.
A neutral temperature, solid ground, touchdown.
I take a moment, catching myself on all fours.
Paused, I sense the ground beneath me, unobliterated.
Face, staring straight ahead, floats comfortably in the Stratosphere.
Chest, respirating, drums a cardiac rhythm inches above the Troposphere.
The tips of my fingers softly tap the crust of the Earth.
I descend my weary head, through the final levels of the atmosphere
to kiss the ground in prayer.
For I made it out of bed today.
Short Story, The Roach
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, it was a realm of divine order. The earth was without form and void, and darkness covered the deep like the troubled dreams of a sleepless night. It dwelled, banished from the light, among and without those who once walked its hallowed grounds.
Roach found himself in a pool of moisture, rolled halfway onto -what he once thought to be- his back. “Or was it my side?” he thought, as his limbs tickled with an unfamiliar numbness. Somehow, he could not recollect the exact composition of what was supposed to be his original form. He layed for quite some time, and despite having zero sense of urgency or purpose, it troubled him that he hadn’t attempted to rise out of this stasis.
The sun had not yet risen, however there remained an underlying itch that prevented the Roach from falling back into the orbit of another hour of slumber. It’s almost -no, very much so- maddening, as he lies alone with each molecule of his body equally demanding action and inaction. At any moment, he could explode to his feet and find something to do, something small even… to make himself feel like anything less than a rotting fruit waiting to collapse into its own core. For another set of impatiently counted minutes, the Roach continued to recollect or rediscover his own body’s quite lumpful shape. The skin on his cheeks observed the everpresent tickle of a mop of curled and matted hair. He raised an arm to pull back the obstruction with an outstretched palm, to brush away the veil from his sight. Yet, as he reached for the front of his face, it was met with the sensation of rubbing the back of the skull. He searched again through the brush of furled locks, crawling his fingers around its perimeter, just to be met by the same sensation around the other hemisphere. The Roach was faceless. Left in banishment, without companionship, to roll around this darkened capsule of his bedroom blind.
Yet, he could still witness a warm glow through the blinds of his chambers slowly getting brighter, revealing the hard surface reflections of the paneled wood walls and uniformly dark oak shelving. It’s as if he was watching his own individual perspective in the third person, like a spectator in his own abominably conglomerated shell. He didn’t need a pair of ears to hear the beads of his own drippings crashing to earth in a rhythmic plop. He didn’t need an armada of eager tastebuds to inform the sickened taste of an unwashed mouth. These were sensations the roach sat and experienced almost journalistically, for another few minutes in bed.
“I find myself, ever inspired by my senses” Roach thought, as he continued to wander his fingertips about the equator of his cranium, before turning north to reach one of the poles where one would typically discover a scalp. This time, however, his tactile expedition was met with a warmth of another. “Hello?.. Who’s there?” He gurgled, without an orifice of which to project his soft words. No response.
So he felt further, running the tips of his fingers past the seam that fused this stranger to his coiled and frizzy mane. Its skin was of no discernible temperature nor texture, as it was identical to that of his own. The Roaches’ hands ventured forth, accounting for the parts of this attachment with a meticulous need for understanding and documentation.
“A pair of supple shoulders, followed by a muscular yet skinny elbow… into two rather limp and small hands.”
Roach distinguished the naturalism of this form, as if it was created as a perfect sculpture of flesh, and compared his own deformities to that of this other half.
“Two stumps, four breasts, three belly buttons, and a rather thick coat of blubber.” The room continued to brighten, as the moonlight reflected the orange radiance of the sun rising a few minutes past the horizon. The visibility only further enhanced how conscious the roach was of his own imperfection. His body was far larger and more grotesque than that of his vestigial twin, realizing just how much of the room he was colonizing with his imposing presence. “Just as I discover myself, why do I hate him so?” Roach contemplated in a spiral of dejection.
The light further highlights the many object contours that surround his periphery. Rags stained with sauces, and wrappers that still linger a scent of artificial sweeteners, are scattered about. A refrigerator, left nearly empty with a sticky brown tint, calls to comfort his sorrowful hunger.
The pit left in his stomach from the discovery of himself, demands to be potted and filled with a cement of caloric glue. So he reaches with his now too large arms for the glisten of an apple resting at the very edge of his bed.
He reaches for the fruit, which he now knows will only fatten him further with its tempting sweetness, but reaches nonetheless. The Roaches fingertip limply glides forth, inches from contact between the fruit and flesh. Ready to be met with a tantalizing and smooth treat, he pauses just before the cataclysm to think to himself “Without a mouth to deposit this fuel, I’ll never know the glory of its natural sugars.”
“If only I had a mouth, yet I’m cursed with the hands to feel what I cannot have.” He reaches for the Apple anyways, for at the moment of collision the sky becomes miraculously illuminated, as a hot white light cuts through the windows blinds.
The Roaches’ palms were not met by the cool skin of a fresh crop. But now squelching meat, skin, and dual rows of teeth. His punishment for his many sins was not an excommunication from the kingdom of God, but the power of creation itself and the curious yearning to harness his own full potential as an artist.
The pear -having been reformed at a uniquely upright position without much downward force- slowly tipped to one side. As if in its inanimateness, the newborn needed a moment to catch its breath. Roach patiently watched, palms still steaming from the heat of spontaneous formation, he rested them atop his knees in a playfully curious manner.
‘Oh, sweet friend of mine, I sense your courteous grin from the shine on your molars… Be unafraid, I await our conversation and your companionship.’ He announced through an orchestra of hums originating deep within his chest cavity. Still awaiting a response from that of his vestigial twin, this time he approached this stranger with a neighborly lack of urgency. Waiting only enhanced the hyperfixation, how with each newly tallied crevasse of flesh, added to the accumulating itch that tries with great force to divert his attention from waiting from the pear to display even a hangnail’s weight of gratitude.
‘I’ve waited, yet you remain speechless.
Speak! Dear friend, with the mouth I’ve sculpted.
A gift of my finite clay, an orifice transplanted from I to you.’
The roach’s impatience in the sociability of this teeth-clad fruit compounded with an insatiable hunger. The initial joy that came from the discovery of genesis faded into a disdain for the fruit. It failed to meet the expectations, and despite Roach’s sacrifice, it didn’t bother to attempt to use the parts in which it was given.
He spent those early minutes with the pear, as any creator does, stepping back and observing the glory of its completed state. A finished painting, with a tidal wave of expectations fit to pop the cork of his everdraining heart. Loving his hard work unabashedly, with it’s wholeness existing proudly in context to its own present potential. Within a few moments, its former traits worth admiration -its glimmering teeth, soft and hairless skin- were picked to ribbed bone. In its wake was another from which to tally flaws. A waste of effort, a tool without purpose, falsely fired terracotta.
Roach hated it, and pictured himself abled and keen to take it to some field unseen to burn away from the presence of what could be. It wears him out.
So he reaches for the fruit, and squeezes it -with a minor expulsion of puss- before whipping the pear with his long arm like a trebuchet against the far wall. A burst of compulsion overtook him, leading to action.
He watches as it flies like a gliding dove, gracefully crashing itself into the doorframe, as if it was blinded to the polished glass of a high rise apartment. It sticks, in a thunk, then a squelch. Staying for almost a whole second, before sliding down to meet the floor. It rests there, for a while, dwelling in its own drippings. Roach lowers his head in defeat, taking the time to continue to try and fall back asleep.
The pear-despite remaining clearly dead- began to vibrate starting to shuffle its way back towards the door.. Some force seemed to be pulling it against the it, before the lump of meat managed to force it open.
The wooded gateway swung wide to swallow a brisk gulp of morning air, filling the roaches room with a chromatic rush of light thoughtfully bounced from the early Richmond skyscape. The itch of stasis, and the strangled need to force growth, moved the Roach to wander.
Tucking his hands into his armpits- to avoid accidentally converting the floor beneath him- the roach uses his elbows and knees to hobble towards the light like a moth. Despite his form being much larger than the doorframe, he pressed forth to realize his bones were far more gelatinous than he initially accounted for.
He scuttles off the porch with a primitive urge to find his new canvas. A new slab of marble from which to free an imprisoned subject in grave need of a savior. He needed his art to speak back, and praise him for his devotion and faith. Roach didn’t bother to pause, as he often did with a careful need to cherish his surroundings, forcing an epiphany through repetitive and obsessive sequences of muscle contractions. Not stopping to see how softly the light glimmered off clumps of varied leaves, or how the tungsten glow of the Libby Hill street lamps turn the concrete to bronze.
He slipped down the grassy hillside face up at the base of his townhouse cocoon, its blades still left slick from nightly dew. All while still dangling his vestigial appendage, whom Roach began to address like a pet as he wandered the park’s curling paths.
‘It’s odd, we hang from each other’s scalps, bound at the equal peak of our forms…
I’m numb to your senses, assuming you are mine, but I can feel your warmth.’
There was a egotistical well of confidence brewing within. So to his twin, and himself, he conceived a mantra:
‘I thank you for guiding me here. This bench will be my masterpiece. I will craft her with the will of my last breath to manifest her companionship and hopefully long, straight legs.’
He reached his massive hand forth to tap the seat into sentience, focusing his creative efforts with the blind intention to outshine the existence of the pear itself. Excavating the flooded grounds where he once loved all his creations, and burying the remaining water under the weight of expectations.
Making things are like digging a quarry. An ever growing hole in the ground that has an insatiable need to take an exponential piece of yourself each time you seek to dig deeper. The water at the bottom stays stagnant and ever present, as more dirt needs to be moved.
Every time you try to lower the flood further into the ground… the sediment gets harder packed, your tools dull. Eventually, the hole will get so deep and narrow that you’ll be lucky to reach bedrock before the waters gone up to your neck.
In a flash of white light the fingertip of Roach made contact with the bench’s leg. Born with a myopic fixation on creating something meaningful, with it’s only purpose being a circular paradox to validate the roach’s compulsive ideation… of course it would be just as much of a voluptuous pile of flesh as him and all his other self-extensions. The Bench was truly grotesque, an offsetting abomination that should be left tucked away.. Spotlighted, it reveals a venous and slimy understructure that resembled what could only be described as the lining of organs. Cresting its back, rising outward like a fan of bones as a form of supposed lumbar support, is a row of Ribs.
Without the immediate sentimental attachment to this creation, he didn’t even bother to carefully observe its lessons. Despite making something, that at face value, was a display of his technical proficiency with the gift -if it was in terms of biomass he far surpassed his previous record- the Roach turned and continued to wander. Leaving the bench, to be forgotten, as he marched forth without seeing the bigger picture.
As the Roach continued to scoot down the path towards the horizon, a soft pulse thumped on in a whisper. His encumbered form limped into the treeline, and past an empty street of cold lights, before vanishing. The veins of the bench squeezed a final burst of fluids throughout its leaking delta of half closed tubing. The Bench was born from the warmth of contact, and died at the shock of its absence.
Roach scooted along train tracks that run parallel to the James for miles, slipping through deep brush with his arms tucked in again to avoid forming another Bench. He spots a rising mass in the distance…‘It must be, a cloud diffusing the glow of the midday sky… Or have I spotted the flame of another explorer in these eerily familiar lands?’
After emerging from the enclosure of the umbrella canopy the roach traces the smoke from above, down to the vast clearing. An old farm stands with prominence against the darkened wall of pine, the sky speckles hints of the start of golden hour through a web of branches. The smoke draws him in, and he glides through the wild grass to inspect its point of origin.
It’s a steaming pile of ash, encircling a rather curvaceous piece of charcoal. Here lies the blackened stem of an apple tree, the centerpiece of a seemingly days old bonfire. The structure of this tree initially shocks the Roach. Its trunk bends with a rhythm that can only be described as elegant and slender, a stark contrast to that of his own barreled chest and fattened hips.
Entirely convinced that this curved and knotted lump of wood could be-with the touch of a hand devoted to its craftsmanship-turned and carved into his final companion. A warm place for Roach to bury his bone. So, the roach crawled into the smoldering embers on his quadrupedal nubs, melting his blubber like butter. Driven by the supposition that anything or anyone can live up to the pedestal of a creator’s expectations. This insect was willing to fly into the light of a flame, to avoid another night aware he’s without the embrace of a partner.
This worthless bug touched the tree, and was certain his solitude was destiny ‘Her form was feminine, her pale and delicate waist softly defined her abdominal muscles. You can see the rosiness of her exposed skin, as its heat blows into the air, leaving the woman windswept as she rests lifelessly on the ground…how the warmth of the reflective light fills the shadows of her bottom. It defines how gracefully her form rests atop the sticks and coals.’ The Roach accounted for her beauty, how she was created in his perfect image, and how lifeless she looked despite such glorious construction.He knew he lost her, the roaches once towering form slumped even further, so he wandered further downriver.
The roach had attached all of his worth, and his finite gift of life to his crafted companion, so in failing to create her he had lost himself. ‘I’m not here, this isn’t happening.’ The Roach repeated to himself, in a flurry of disassociation as he shambled through more vegetation before realizing in his blinded state of tunnel vision: there was no longer ground beneath him from which to scurry.
The roach tumbled down, a distant pilot to his own ship, listening to the scrapes and cracks of his fracturing frame as he rolled into an old quarry like a symphony of sensory red alerts. Pain was no longer of concern to him.
He splashes into the wellspring below, and sinks to the bottom, comfortably numb and ready for the water pressure to burst his eardrums deafening lullaby. Roach rests at the bottom of the river in a cushion of soot, it speckles from the fools gold that cuts through the upkick of its dark accumulations.
The neurons in the roaches brain begin to crackle into nothingness, with asphyxia surrounding his consciousness auraed in a tentacled vignette. In his grand destruction, he feels a connection with a part of himself once lost. His once paralytic twin uses the bottom of its feet, and clasps within them a ball of muck.
They demand a final sculpture from his fading cortex. They float out of the water as if they became of perfectly neutral buoyancy, and rest atop the waters plane like a mirror.
The attachment opens its cupped feet to reveal a clay doll, sculpted with the care of a last minute creative Hail Mary. It lowers the doll to Roach, for his vestige had gifted him the greatest of lessons. It has to come from within, you can’t see a fruit just to demand it grows legs to guide you. You can’t force a park bench, or the loss of one, to spoon feed you an epiphany. A creator scoops the earth from where they stand, for even when our fingertips reach for the heavens, the soil that grounds our soles to this place cannot be neglected. The love of the whole is the first step to projecting its potential glory outward.
A man appears at the opposite end of the Roaches fingertip in his place. He stands alone, atop the water’s surface tension. Finger pointed at nothing but a dove in the distant sky. Free to walk the earth as his complete form, a person free to grow without needing to analyze and reconfigure his surroundings. Content, with his only responsibility being fulfilled by living for his own satisfaction.