The respiration of air and the regulation of its exchange between internal and external spaces is the subject of the Pranayama series of body-object sculptures. Made with raw materials such as wood, stone, and crystal, each sculpture is pierced to create channels and openings that expose the interior to the outside. Punctured with Jacuzzi jet nozzles, the rose quartz sculptures summon the metaphysical, affective, and therapeutic properties of the material and objects.
The works draw on the external imperative to reform the body and the inner spiritual practice of ‘opening’ the mind through psycho-physiological regulation—the scene of the fully targeted self. Pranayama, “control of vital air” in Sanskrit, is the ancient Vedic science of breath in which the pursuit of mental liberation is achieved through respiratory techniques to bring the unconscious autonomic nervous system under voluntary control. The sculptures evoke the external imperative to reform the body in relation with the spiritual practice of ‘opening’ the body through internal regulation.
