Body, Mat, Mark-Making

Abstract

I explore painting and drawing through a binding of its performative activity with the practice of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Constraints are put in place to impose constant and abrupt switching between mark-making and grappling activity. The repetition involved in this structure fuses these two distinct activities into one. The experience of mushin (no-mind), a state one enters when deeply immersed in martial art activity, overlaps into the process of mark-making. This experience of mark-making subsequently influences the activity on the mat. Affect, as a pre-cognitive entity, participates alongside conscious activity in this feedback loop of influences. From this view, I revisit the idea of constraint and mushin. The resulting works depict fragmented bodies-in-process, produced under a state of mushin that involves the constrained combination of unconscious and conscious, mental and bodily influences.