brian david dennis

2022

 

In Marionette Suite, the self appears as a body acted upon: suspended, arranged, and estranged from its own agency. These self-portraits use disembodiment to give vulnerability a physical form. The figure is recognizably mine, yet it also becomes an object, a surrogate, and a witness.

 

The work rises from trauma I endured as a teenager, when drug-induced paralysis made my body present but unavailable to me. That history no longer commands my constant attention, but I listen when it speaks through the work. Marionette Suite is not an illustration of the event. It is an encounter with its afterlife—and an offering of tangible form to others whose experiences remain difficult to hold or name.