MEETING [THE] TEXT HALFWAY

EXEG[TH]ESIS DOCUMENTATION
SHOW: All PAST TEXT OBJECT TONGUES TOWERS SWEAT RETRIBUTION QUEER NEXT
THE TEXT IS TRANS–
COCONUT STUDIOS//2024In 2024, I was invited to participate in a six-week trans support group program, meeting with trans and non-binary folks to discuss shared experiences, concerns, and forms of community engagement, as well as to hear from invited speakers working in our community. I was invited to contribute a session in the form of a performance lecture, which included the production and distribution to the group of a series of small framed artworks. Each work engaged a term beginning with ‘trans’, also used as a chapter markers within the presentation. Terms we laser cut into the framing of the works alongside definitions that were technically incorrect, however spoke to a certain condition of the term itself.

I place this series here as a reflection on the ambivalence of the surface. The terms are held in a kind of forced suspension: their conventional meanings remain legible, however, they are also displaced by alternative definitions. Meaning is held in tension. This suspension is echoed in the collaged materials, whose surfaces are themselves already ambiguous and multiple. Word and image operate together where meaning is continuously negotiated.

WAX//TEXT
STUDIO: 09.DEC.2025I'm not quite sure where it fits into the larger schema of the final exhibition. However, the idea is to build an animated font. The letters are made from wax, and I’ll record them melting. Once I have the individual letter assets, I can use them as a sort of digital typesetting. The compositions can be arranged into texts which will melt when read.

The first stage was laser cutting the stencils and using them to create the wax lettering. Some interesting difficulties included bleeding beneath the stencils. I don’t mind it, although I’d prefer sharper. Always working with paper is tricky. The temperature of the wax and the paper matter significantly, and the margin of ideal conditions to achieve a sharp, non-greasy application of the wax is slight.

The next stage is to rig up a shoot whereby I can film the letters while heating them from behind. Again, small margin for error, and I want to wax not to melt too quickly or to run entirely off the page. 
ECCE HOMO (BEHOLD THE HOMO)
NORTHERN CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART//2025Ecce Homo (Behold the Homo) was exhibited in Queer Territory at the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art in 2025. Queer Territory was the first significant survey exhibition of queer contemporary art practice in the Northern Territory, bringing together around 20 artists whose work spans the 1990s to the present.

The work is a projected text piece made from digitally animated wax letters. Each letter was first produced physically using stencilled graphite-infused wax on paper, then filmed as it melted under heat. These melting letters were edited, inverted, and reassembled digitally into words and poetic fragments that appear in silvery light before dissolving back into darkness.

The title draws on Ecce Homo — “Behold the Man” — from the Gospel of John, and queers it as Behold the Homo. Projected onto a wall, the work also recalls the biblical image of mysterious writing appearing on a surface before it can be understood. Here, text behaves like flesh, wax, light, and residue: it appears, is read, begins to fail, and returns as trace.
©2025I acknowledge The Larrakia People who are the First Peoples and Traditional Custodians of this land and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty of Country was never ceded.