the
'SENSATION'
exhibition

The "Sensation" collection will be available for viewing across the week (Mon-Fri) following the opening ceremony on Sunday the 4th of August 2024.

This upcoming art exhibition and performance event brings you the work of Brija Davis and Psyalux, two emerging Melbourne-based artists who explore the frayed edges of intimacy and sensory stimulation. Each artist has a distinct approach to translating these themes and their work finds new ways to to share and broaden perspectives of vulnerability, trust, and sensuality.

In the lead-up to the event we are showcasing a selection of key works that will feature,

'Levitated'

A visual articulation of weightlessness, in both the external and internal sense. This suspension scene displays a tender moment shared in the midst of a physical gauntlet of sensation. Contrary to the subject's apparent predicament, the sense of weightlessness is drawn from embracing vulnerability and discarding the heavy armour we use to conceal our desire to be both soft... and softened by the magnetic forces of gravity.

Materials: Acrylics, Inks & Gesso on 24" x 32" stretched canvas

'EMBRACE'

Interpersonal dynamics are a core part of how we define ourselves, but due to the ever-changing nature of our shared existence we can only ever move through fleeting moments of mutuality. Irregularly punctuating the seconds of our lives, here I try to capture one such moment of ephemeral bliss shared between two subjects. Most quietly live in search of such moments, which seem vanishingly small by comparison to the time elapsed in searching. The embrace is not just physical, its an open embrace to the possibility of mutual connectedness in an increasingly isolated world.

Subject references: Leo Lockwood & Hunny

Materials: Acrylics, Gesso, Ink, UV neon paints/inks on 30" x 30" stretched canvas

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'Apparitions of Desire'

Subject references: Emira Cross

Materials: Acrylics, inks & gesso on 16"x20" stretched canvas

'Enlightenment in Obscurity'

Subject reference: Marie Thorne

Mateirals: Acrylics on 18"x24" stretched canvas (thin)

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'Blood Lillies' (SOLD)

A playful impressionistic twist on Monet's 'water lillies', the suspension shibari scene depicts the subject at the centre of a room which plays against the minds natural focal length. The floor awash with reflective ripples, the walls appear sharply defined while the subject appears in a transitory focal length that melds into the walls and floor. Designed to signify a transition between subject and object... both an ornament in the room and the very thing that defines the space.

Materials: Acrylics, inks, & gesso on 24" x 30" (61x76cm) stretched canvas (thin)

'Broken Fall'

The 'break ones fall' is a common phrase, but I take this for a separately subjective reading that understands the role of 'trust' in D/S relationships & sensory play.

Rather than 'accidental', here the 'fall' is intentional, and while the impact is 'broken' (somewhat) this piece was designed to contemplate the 'brokenness' of human nature itself. Our fragmented selves, imperfect and gorgeous as they are, find release when allowing the 'fall' in trusted company - those who can respect, value and nourish the broken parts of us yearning for recognition. The blindfold accentuates the deep desire to commit the senses fully into the hands of one who will 'bare witness' to the unburdening of misunderstood internal states. Society insists on agency and achievement, and yet a uniquely personal freedom is found in revealing the broken parts of ourselves to those who can hold space for that honesty.

Subject Reference: Infernal Desire Machine

Materials: Acrylics, gesso, ink on 14"x28" (35.5cm x 71.1cm) stretched canvas

'Desire Incarnate'

Subject referenced: Rix Rin

Materials: Acrylics, Inks, markers on 16"x20" (40.5cmx50.5cm)Stretched canvas (thin)

'Inescapable Indulgences'

Subject referenced: Audrey Fatale

Materials: Acrylics, Inks, Gesso on 24"x24" (60cmx60cm) stretched canvas (thin)

'Digital Consumerism'

A piece designed to articulate the severed sense of interpersonal connection on intimacy-centred digitital platforms. Despite the potency with which it might seek to simulate or substitute for reality, the desire to be immersed in our desires, to be fully 'consumed' by our most heartfelt perversions... we are always (eventually) awoken back into our 'real' three-dimensional existence. As famously put by Shakespeare, 'the eyes are the window the the soul', and in this piece the viewer is presented with intimate access to the subject's oral orifice, but is simultaneously denied a 'soul' to connect with. The QR code-covered eyes enhance this denial and also question of whether a 'connection to the soul' is itself much more than a personalised 'optional-extra' in a society dominated by digital consumerism.

Materials: Acrylics, gesso, ink on 14"x28" (35.5cm x 71.1cm) stretched canvas

'Carnal Intuitions' (SOLD)

Subject Referenced: Drew Slater (From the Nightlife Series )

Materials: Acrylics, Neon UV Paint on 18"x36" (45.7x91.45cm) stretched canvas (thick)

'Quenched'

Subject referenced: Unnamed figures

Materials: Oils on 20"x 30" (50.5cm x 76.5cm) stretched canvas (thin)

Water... one cannot understate its importance to our species, and indeed to life as we know it in the universe. Sharing (or seeing the) tears of others is something we scarcely forget, and in step with the diversity of emotional contexts they emerge in crying is widly considered to be a quintessential component of humanity. In joy, beauty and pain, they epitomise a bridge between our inner & outer worlds. As creatures so entirely dependent on water to survive, it is curious that we would shed this valuable moisture, but this piece shows that nourishment takes many forms. Thirst and satiation are forms of giving and taking, and beyond the mutual indulgence of the dacryphilia depicted here, this exchange quenches the intimate need to have our internal fragility recognised, accepted, and a truly valued.

"...SECRET TITLE..."

The name of this piece informs its subject matter and the socio-historical context it wishes to speak to. The nexus between technology and communication is at the very heart of all societies, and it is the combination of these elements which perpetually hyper-accellerate the impace and influence on how society develops and how its citizens are being reciprocally developed and refined through its influence.

'Poise Incandescence '

Subject Referenced: Zoe Demure

Materials: Acrylics, gesso, ink on 16"x24" (40.64x61cm) stretched canvas (thin)

'Ethereal and Visceral' (SOLD)

Subject Referenced: Ayla Reid

Materials: Acrylics, Watercolours, spray paint on 16"x24" (40.64x61cm) stretched canvas (thin)

'Non-negotiables'

I would encourage onlookers to consider peeling back the tape which is covering the eyes. (yes physically removing the adhesive tape) from the eyes. Notice what comes up for you. Hesitation to intrude, the desire for knowledge, the search for identity, the hope that we might turn the spotlight on another for a brief moment, and in looking for another forget ourselves. Peel the tape and see what it is you will find in place of what you run from.

Subject referenced: Unnamed Figure

Materials: Oils on 15"x 30" (stretched canvas (thick)

'Luminescence'

Subject Referenced: Marie Thorne

Materials: Acrylics, inks, Watercolours, gesso on 16"x24" (40.64x61cm) stretched canvas (thin)

'Perception & Inception'

Subject: Cece Moore

Materials: Acrylics, gesso, ink on 16"x24" (40.64x61cm) stretched canvas (thin)

'Obscure Incisions'

Subject Reference: Vivian Six

Materials: Ink, Alcohol markers, acrylic on 16" x 20" canvas board]

'Rouge & Abuse'

Subject reference: Blake Carter

Materials: Acrylics, & ink on 61x76cm stretched canvas (thin)

"Séchage"

Subject: Unnamed Figure

Materials: Acrylics, inks & gesso on 24"x24" stretched canvas (thick)

'Lust & Wrath'

The desire for flesh as as palpable as the desire to be consumed. We all have specific ideas of a select few ways we might NOT wish to die, e.g. burning, drowning, cancer, etc... and what unnatural deaths they all might seem!... Yet, it is worth asking ourselves what more 'natural' a death could a fly imagine other than that of landing in the spider's web.

Subject Reference: Emira Cross

Materials: Acrylics, inks & gesso on 16"x24" stretched canvas (thin)