Still Gods

A series of human bodies stripped of identity and agency, transformed into icons, relics, and sculptural objects, suspended between life and artifact. The exhibition explores the dehumanization of the body through aesthetic perfection.

STILL GODS

Still Gods is a photographic body of work that collapses the boundaries between flesh and object, presence and artifact. Through body painting, constructed sculptural elements, and controlled photographic staging, the human figure is stripped of identity and agency, transformed into icons, relics, and mythic forms suspended between life and permanence.

The body is no longer presented as a subject. It becomes material.

Coated, sealed, and redefined through pigment and texture, the skin simulates stone, resin, metal, and eroded surfaces, dissolving individuality in favor of form. The photographic image completes this transformation, fixing the body in a state of timeless stillness, where it exists not as a living being, but as something to be observed, displayed, and consumed.

Alongside the photographic works, the artist introduces handmade sculptural pieces, often referencing animal forms, snakes, organic structures, hybrid elements that are integrated into the compositions or presented independently. These objects extend the logic of the work: the human merges with the symbolic, the natural becomes constructed, and the boundary between body and artifact collapses.

The exhibition operates across four interconnected tensions:

• Dehumanization through perfection
  The aestheticization of the body erases identity. Smooth, controlled surfaces replace expression, turning the human into an object of contemplation rather than empathy.

• The body as material
  Flesh is treated as substance, painted, textured, and manipulated to resemble sculptural matter. The body becomes interchangeable with stone, metal, or resin.

• Transformation into icon and myth
  Through the integration of sculptural elements—particularly animal references—the figure evolves into a symbolic entity. No longer individual, it becomes archetype, fetish, or deity.

• Breath vs. stillness
  The recurring presence of the mouth, obstruction, and organic elements introduces a quiet tension between life and suffocation. The body appears alive, yet immobilized, caught in a suspended state between existence and display.

The work is constructed through a hybrid practice:

• Photography as the final act of fixation, transforming ephemeral performance into permanent image

• Body painting as a sculptural tool, reshaping the body’s surface into material illusion

• Handmade sculpture as extension, introducing physical objects that simulate animal and organic forms, reinforcing the shift from human to symbolic

Each image is not captured but built in a controlled environment where body, object, and light function as a single sculptural composition.