Artist statement

In my work, I think through intergenerational and female, corporeal trauma, the ecological and cultural loss of home, of childhood and of our allegiance to the stars. I am interested in the cycles and transformations of the material universe and how they interact with metaphysical existence within diaspora. I am interested in how different technologies of knowing—from science and technology, to intuitional, indigenous and alchemical epistemologies—influence the organized schemas of one’s self-concept, one’s unconscious, and one’s emotional experience and behavior.

Hylozoism sees life in what western thought and many theistic traditions would name inert. It is a way of seeing that we are conditioned to lose as we leave childhood. We stop attributing agency to the table that we run into, the wind that wants our hat; at once a return to the future and an advancement to the past, looking back to look forward. Where are the meaningful moments of relay in childhood wonder, ignorance, in lost relics, obsolete technologies, symbols and cosmologies of the past?

My 2nd year project seeks to dialogue inner human subjectivity with external culture and exchange: images, orientations and crafts of my own and of those I seek to acquaint. The school has helped me develop many skills and interests and I have chosen to take miniature painting, pigment-making, clay and glass work into this project.

The project includes stained-glass, drawn from elements of the Great East Window of York Minster; ceramic tiles exploring ancient mythologies such as tree of life diagrams, sema-tawy motif, and the art of Urartu; and finally, miniature paintings inspired by the Indian tradition.

Biography

Crystal studied fine art and plant biology for her undergraduate degree. Over the course of the MA she has been drawn to the grotesque and humorous aesthetic of sacred art which investigates the torment of the human soul. In it, she looks for themes and shapes which connect modernity and history in an attempt to understand and unpack this world. Crystal was awarded a Watson Fellowship in 2021 which she will embark on following the MA. On it, she hopes to make it to Estonia, Lithuania, Palestine, Uganda, Belgium and India to explore musical subcultures that refract traditional, regional musical culture through a modern, electronic lens. She is in search of the sounds and mantras within sacred spaces in hopes of understanding the meaning of Nada Brahma.

Contact

Instagram @djjfuxx
Email masisi[at]gmail.com