Melbourne Arts Festival ‘25
Emerging Artist Award
Shortlisted to exhibit alongside 12 fellow young and early-career artists aged 16 - 25 as part of the festival’s Emerging Artist section.
Winner of the Emerging Artists ‘People’s Choice Award’.
‘The Performed Self’
Framed H107.6cm x W89cm || Un-Framed H103cm x W84.1cm
Computational and Photography
The Performed Self is a deeply personal exploration of introspective identity, drawing on Erving Goffman’s 'The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life' as a conceptual framework. The work examines how selfhood is not merely discovered, but actively curated, shaped through the act of looking inward and questioning which fragments feel most true. It asks: when I turn my gaze upon myself, what do I see, and what do I wish to remain concealed?
The portrait depicts two faces in dialogue. One gazing outward, one hollowed and seen from behind. Reflecting the layered process of self-examination, questioning how identity is constantly curated through reflection, performance, and the shifting dialogue between inner selves. This visual structure of the portrait mirrors the inward loop of self-examination, where the self looks inwards, through the shell of itself, searching for answers to its identity.
By portraying the same face twice, The Performed Self invites viewers to look at themselves and their own identity, asking them to question their own curation and performance. It is as much a work of self-exploration as it is a portrait, showing who I believe myself to be, who I am still discovering and who I want to be perceived as.
