Initially, my intention
with making work that uses these kinds of
illusionistic tricks
was to just sort of
be able to carve out
a place that's actually ...
it's a place that doesn't exist on Earth.
Or a way of showing something that
where the laws of the
world we live in don't necessarily apply.
I really like that there's a physical feeling
the vertigo of getting
close to the railing, and that
I think that that's also really necessary
to build up the emotional pitch
of the piece or the momentum.
The different layers I think
of sort of as representing different
ways of being in the world.
The pool – the important thing about that one,
for me, was that it created this
like really intense turquoise blue,
and you see it from the right perspective.
And that blue to me seemed really,
it's like the dream of clear water
and almost like relief from this
really hectic world.
On the apartment level,
it sort of represented to me
just the... the feeling of like,
I guess, like shame and
things being out of control
and just feeling like you can't get away.
I guess you could say those two things
are in conflict with each other.
And the guts themselves –
and also the name of the whole piece –
I guess I got really interested
in the fact that the word 'guts'
is so complicated because people
talk about like leading
from your gut,
but it's like
to decide things based on your gut feeling
is like about intuition and
this idea of listening to yourself
and, at the same time, this hovering
threat of being sick
or feeling sick from all these problems.
Because ultimately the piece is about
this struggle to try and understand
what we should do because everything
is such a mess right now and I think,
personally, I don't have any answer
for what to do to fix it.
And so,
I guess a while ago in my work
I just decided I was going to make
work that was about the problem
and not about how to fix it.
I see the illusionistic structure
as a framework in which I can kind of
use as almost like the way
a stretcher is for a painting,
the way that you need somewhere to start,
and then you fill in all of it
with the complexity and contradictions
and problems that I'm interested in
presenting next to each other.
I also just started using this kind of
dichromatic or holographic vinyl.
Depending on the perspective you're
looking at it, it's a different colour.
And so I, not being a scientist,
tried to figure out a way so that
I just wanted them to feel
as they went down like they were different places.
For instance, the snakes and the crabs,
from this perspective, looking across
they look like they're on a green base.
And then when you look one level down,
it looks like they're on an orange base.
And then if you look to the next level
of them down they're like cherry red.
The whole thing with using illusion
is that it's really precise, all of it.
And, in this way of, it's almost like
you could go on controlling it
and controlling it and controlling it.
But I've been trying to let go a bit.
I kind of wanted to find a way of working
where I don't actually know what the
outcome is going to be.
And rather than
manipulate people – because I never
wanted the layers or anything about it
to be didactic –
rather than being something that's
trying to tell someone something,
I wanted it to be more like a puzzle
of problems or present the person
who's looking at it with just problems,
not answers.