In the immersive world of virtual reality, The Bell Jar offers a liminal encounter with the soma and psychology of Other and Self; a translucent membrane between seen and unseen on the thresholds of psychic encounters, surreal apparitions, epiphanies and dystopian dreams. At first encounter, two crystal-glass figures rise up, in parallel and perfect harmony. Autonomous and precarious, they lean-in to the point of breaking. They bow to one another but do not touch. Frozen in a balletic pas de deux, the figures crystallise the tension between yearning bodies – as if real-world pandemic rules on physical distancing infiltrated the virtual sphere. Ultramodern curves describe a classical arch, an incomplete yet enclosing echo chamber, a circle defined by air. As the viewer encircles the composition, the minimalist lines transform into volumes of reflections and light, releasing a swirl of I-shadows that lock the audience spell-bound in a cave-like space. The multiple I-forms become sounds in the mind's eye, a collective murmur or hum, an ambient 'aye'. Voices reverberate in the crystalline edges, tracing memories of I/One on the wall behind, precious haloes of humanity in shadowy times.
The glazed monument surfaced in the artist's dreams and named on waking: The Bell Jar, a futuristic reimagining of Sylvia Plath's 1963 novel navigating unpredictable and unknowable states of mind and being.