2022 // embroidery floss on aida cloth
An examination of the image as encounter, the affect captured in a single moment. The title of this piece comes from psychologist Paul Ekman’s Facial Action Coding Scheme (FACS), which identifies facial expressions based on the movement of particular muscle groups in the face. Under Ekman’s (widespread, but empirically suspect) universal theory of emotion, the face holds our true feelings, and these emotions can be studied by capturing facial expressions during fleeting moments where our subconscious takes over. This piece refracts that view by capturing the ambivalent relationship between the feeling itself and what is depicted in the image: as a painstaking recreation of my own expression, does this piece capture any real sense of how I felt in that moment, or is it a deliberate recognition? Suspended by threads, my face sags under its own weight.
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