Anh Thy Hoang

My work is an investigation of my personal experience with dissociation and the relationship between substances and self image. I am especially drawn to patterns as a metaphor for dissociation as I attempt to mediate the therapeutic potential of repetition with the sinister implications of living cyclically.  As the work progressed, repetition and pattern became a way to talk about addiction and routine, and sleep became an important mental space. In sleep, the transition between conscious and unconscious becomes a comforting liminal space that parallels death. The repetitive task of painting patterns mimics a similar catharsis as the mind shifts into auto-pilot. As the body learns to go through motions of living without much thought, dissociation is the mind reconciling the feeling of being alive and dead at the same time. As my work expands, I aim to further blur the lines between what is routine and what is addiction while tracking my own loss of identity in the process.