Tobey Sharp Studio

Throughout my life, the concept of having a body has been one that is hard to grapple with. Not the physical look of the body, but the tactile nature of living within one. There is a certain feeling that comes over me sometimes, a sort of hyperawareness that makes it unnervingly uncomfortable to live within my own flesh. I feel fragile like I am made of glass, like I am made of something I cannot handle being made out of. It is akin to becoming aware of your own breathing, or blinking, because once you do so you cannot unnotice it. I haven’t ever been able to fully communicate this feeling through words, and even after trying to through imagery it has still been difficult. 

I focused on the feeling, likening it to something more tangible and landed on trypophobia. Unfortunately I am also a person who is unnerved by coral, sponges, and similar things. The branching and layered holes have always been a fascination through that fear. The way that connective tissue looks under a microscope is also in this same vein. Thus, I used that imagery and channeled it through the lens of my own fears to conceptualize how I wanted to structure this sculpture. I used layered fabric that I cut, stretched and glued to make my own canvas that I then detailed with oil paint to get the blended and abstract colors that are surprisingly accurate – not everything in the body is all red gore. I wanted to find the beauty within this conversation as well, using representation through abstraction to quell my fear, letting it simmer along the surface of both these pieces and my own skin.