When you are not around

^{[When you are not around]}

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In When You Are Not Around, the series meditates on maternal absence and our fraught relationship with the body’s innate functions—often understood through guilt and shame. Merging hard plastic toys like animal ride-ons with supple stuffing, delicate fabrics, vibrant textiles, and intricate embroidered beadwork, the sprawling soft sculptures and installations explore how children’s toys become maternal substitutes, intensifying attachment to objects in the caretaker’s absence. Drawing on Freudian theories of infantile sexuality and the Oedipus complex, these works release repressed urges and subconscious fantasies—from excretion and masturbation to monstrous dreams and bodily pleasure derived from solitary play on toys requiring close physical contact, such as ubiquitous animal-shaped scooters. What is typically seen as disgusting or sordid emerges as playful forms, ruminating on motherhood's entanglement with femininity and how we process being part of our mothers while coping with their absence.

_{︎ Dual show @ Abu Dhabi Art, UAE 2024 ︎}

_{︎ One Is Not Born A Woman- group show @ Square Street Gallery, HK 2024 ︎}

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^{The Triumph of ...}
^{fabric, beads, cotton stuffing,thread,

rattle insert, animal ride-ons compartments}

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^{To be an Orchid}
^{fabric, beads, cotton stuffing,thread,

rattle insert, animal ride-ons compartments}

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^{The Kiss}
^{fabric, cotton stuffing,thread,

animal ride-ons compartments}

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^{The Secret Keeper}
^{fabric, beads, cotton stuffing, thread,

animal ride-ons compartments}

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^{Spreading like a butterfly}
^{fabric, beads, cotton stuffing,thread, rattle insert,

animal ride-ons compartments}

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^{Kite Runner}
^{fabric, cotton stuffing,thread, rattle insert,

animal ride-ons compartments}

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[When you are not around]

^{[When you are not around]}