ACAE Gallery Emerging Artist Award.
TOTAL RECALL: IN UNDERSTANDING THE SELF FROM ONEIRIC FRAGMENTS
I used to have this recurring dream when I was younger. I would be lying on a conveyor belt in a warehouse by myself, in which I was a cyborg, gradually being assembled together by unmanned robotic arms. And at the end of the dream, the warehouse would collapse and I would wake up. I distinctly remember having this dream periodically throughout my childhood, the last time I had it was at 17.
Throughout my life, I’ve had a few, notable, reoccurring dreams, and in general, have loosely inscribed my dream recollections to this day. I have always had this desire to materialise a depiction of them. Within my practice, I have explored the depiction of a ‘self-portrait’ from various lenses, from the physicality and visceral material composition of the body, to recollections of Chinese-Australian diasporic experiences. What I had yet to explore in depth, was my own unconscious, and how its depictions could potentially expand my alternative self-portraiture. I am fascinated with the formation of memories and dreams: the neurological pathways, dream theories, reoccurring dream motifs and interobjects, their meanings and interpretations, the physical and sensual triggers that onset memory recall, the imagined yet vivid sensations felt in REM, and the emotional aftermath of both psychological phenomena.
For this project, I attempt to explore and understand the self through my unconscious, with depictions of my dreamscape, taking a Jungian approach to dream analysis; gathering and consolidating my oneiric fragments and episodic memories, using my artistic practice as the “ritual to make the dream concrete”, to unveil the ‘self’ that is concealed to the ‘waking world’. I am curious of how it might inform my processing of certain life events, memories, or emotive responses, if the outcome will be cathartic, or if I’m left more mystified.
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Jessica Guo (J郭) is a Chinese-Australian multidisciplinary artist (predominantly painting, with an affinity for alternative materials), based in Naarm. Her focus is on story-telling, making capsules based in phenomenology, evocations of personal memories, human connections and emotions. Through exploring the fragments of her lived experiences, and sharing those stories in her practice, Jessica aims to better understand her positionality, and herself.
instagram: @jg_art_
Jessica Guo