Metamorphosis as An Artist

Art is never truly complete, it is an ongoing conversation, constantly evolving and sparking creativity in unexpected ways. When creating my two works, I instinctively used a combination of artificial and natural elements in my works, unaware that I was entering a much bigger dialogue. Both my works became not just an exploration of materials, but an echo manifesting in the interplay between transience and permanence of time. It was established by the interconnectedness developed between the crafted artificial vs natural blooms.  This dialogue went beyond the act of making and introduced me to some really intriguing themes of interconnectedness, transformation, and the tension between artificial vs natural forms. 

My first piece included delicate blooms crafted from paper and plastic, attached to wire, ending with a paper butterfly transcending the frame. As I underwent the process of making this, I went through an exploratory artistic process driven by curiosity, material experimentation, and self discovery. In this work, I was drawn to forms, shapes, materials, structures, and complementary elements, allowing things to unfold and embrace uncertainty. For me, it was about pushing the creative methods I’ve discovered and refined throughout my artistic journey, challenging myself to see how far they could take me. During this process, I wasn’t focused on the reasoning behind my choices, what interesting conversations they could spark and instead focused on just simply the joy of making. This has resulted in a dynamic piece symbolizing personal growth, and the balance between comfort and challenge. 

Ever since I can remember, maybe 3-4 years old, I’ve always been captivated by the boundless possibility that creation begins when in the presence of recycled materials. Some may think it may be clutter, but to me, each material becomes something unique due to its form and its own elements. Most of the time, my imagination transcends beyond its certain frame and finds potential in each element giving it a new meaning. After the first one and a half years of focusing merely on paintings, printmaking, and other materials that I feel safe and familiar with, I immediately found myself drawn back to the joy of creating with recycled materials. After experimenting and playing around, I immediately felt captivated by the conversation between the two mediums of traditional and sustainable art that I created. Now I can’t help but feel empowered to create greater works that are beyond my comfort zone, always 3-dimensional, creating a dialogue between the art I love and the one I feel inclined towards. Additionally, I had the impulse to constantly have the need to transcend the confined or even have that urgency to have my materials overflow into space. At first, I couldn’t point at this feeling, but a classmate brought notice to it, specifically the dynamic interplay between color, movement, light, shadow, textures, that evoked an ambience of liveliness and movement in time and space. When I learned about an artist, I gained a new insight into the significance in creating such pieces that may create unexpected and liberating discoveries.  

This desire to push boundaries reminded me of an artist, Frank Stella, who was an influential American artist known for his fascinations in minimalism and abstract expressionism. Interestingly, he was always intrigued by and challenged the notions of the confines of a frame or canvas. His work shifted from traditional forms into embracing sculptural and dynamic pieces where he intended to “escape” the confines of a frame, challenging the ideas surrounding traditional paintings. Learning about his desire to ‘escape the confines of the frame’ helped me navigate through these impulses to go beyond traditional boundaries. Similarly to Stella’s shift, I felt drawn to creating pieces that overflow into space beyond the traditional boundaries allowing myself to develop a stage of transformation in a unique manner. Stella’s intention was based on the significance of how the painting should engage with the viewer’s space through it having elements overflowing into the surrounding area, creating a dialogue between the artwork, viewers, and the environment. His interest in creating works that activated the space around him, parallels my desire to create works that may not only be about having materials overflowing into space but focusing on the ability to create a connection between the traditional notions of art making and going beyond them. His ability to challenge the ideas of “frame” both in a physical but also metaphorical boundary, aligns with my struggle in detaching from perfection and embracing spontaneity in my artistic practice. However, in my recent pieces, my use of letting my materials overflow or become alive, allowed me to break free and go beyond my comfort zone. In addition, it helped me challenge the notions of tradition in an explorative sense where I try to find new conversations between the old and the new in my artistic practice. In other words, I do not disregard the traditional notions of art, and instead embrace it with a new perspective and allow liberating discoveries to arrive. Learning of his innovative approach of “coming out of a frame” helped me articulate my own inclination to bring my pieces alive and develop new liberating discoveries. 

Naturally, I did not think that it was merely a coincidence or something planned where I have that inclination to bring my pieces alive or develop a sense of transformation as an artist. I think that most of it has to do with my development both artistically, in personal growth and transformation naturally as an artist. Stella’s shift from minimalism into sculptural and dynamic pieces describes a form of artistic transformation. While it doesn't derive from expertise or knowing what to do, instead it was a result of experimentation, curiosity, critical thinking, and openness to new possibilities. Similarly, having done many small exciting and liberating projects when I was younger, coming back to traditional art, and then combining both worlds together now, brought me joy in the evolution of my artistic process, appreciating the changes it brings. 

As I have been working on this artwork, including many artworks that followed along in my studio practice, I have found myself reflecting on how much my artistic journey feels like a process of transformation, almost like a butterfly breaking free from its cocoon. 

This notion of escaping boundaries, parallels the idea into this transformative process in what I call metamorphosis. Not in the biological sense, but rather a metaphor of both how Stella developed his style and how I am able to connect this to my process of artistic thinking. Stella’s shift and transformation throughout his artistic career mirrored my own transformation where my work evolves, never fully finished, and always in motion. Naturally, it is not in the perfect harmony of a transformation, there were some moments of obstacles, perfectionism, stubborn adherence, just like any other artist. Just like a butterfly evolving from a cocoon, I have now seen how my work is starting to be a part of a bigger dialogue, whether it may be about the tension between artificial vs natural elements or about the interplay between light and shadow, I felt that my own style or work is slowly starting to evolve into something spontaneous that I may not know about yet. 

When discussing the process of metamorphosis, in Emmanuel Coccia’s book Metamorphoses, the notion of constant evolution describes the world as a living, interconnected flow of transformations, where everything is in a constant flow, evolving and influencing one another. Metamorphosis is not limited to biology, but it extends to every part of the world in which it goes through a series of transformation and change which all together forms a universal metamorphosis. From an artistic point of view, a piece of art transforms its meaning across various movements, cultural contexts, and availability of materials. It is never static, therefore, it resonates well with my process of making art. Just like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, each of my materials and artworks all go through their own metamorphosis - from discarded materials into meaningful components of my larger image. With reference to how Coccia describes the process of transformation, specifically about how form is always evolving and changing to adapt to the ever changing world, resonates with my development from little art experiments using recycled materials, to challenging the traditional notions of art, embracing it with a new perspective where i try find meaning in unexpected items or ideas. 

Not only is metamorphosis seen from an artistic point of view, but also, in my personal development. Growing up as a deaf person within an ever changing society also plays a role in influencing my own development and transformation as a result of my daily interactions with environment and time. This as a result made me realize that transformation is not static, but rather about the process, the willingness to embrace uncertainty, step out of my comfort zone, leading to a process of metamorphosis in how I see myself as an artist. 

Another aspect of metamorphosis that Coccia describes, is the interconnectedness of all living by embracing that everything is interconnected leading to constant transformations, and life is seen as a shared environment where it is about relationships rather than fixed boundaries. He challenges the notion of distinctions between species, objects, and humans. Referring to this and metamorphosis, I immediately reflected back to my own foundation of Hinduism which metaphorically can be considered a cocoon. Just like in Hinduism, all forms of life are part of one whole continuum where everything coexists with one another. Coccia emphasizes how all forms are dependent on one another, often merging, and transforming into another. 

This resonates with my experience of creating every work. Specifically my second piece of artwork was influenced by the conversations about transformation and metamorphosis. I entered a bigger dialogue of the tension between artificiality and natural elements in my work. I initially felt challenged when this topic came up from my classmates. However, I realized that there's so much meaningful conversation that a simple artwork like mine can spark, particularly the coexistence of artificiality and natural elements in my first work.  This dialogue influenced my thought process behind my second work. 

My second piece of work is a torso crafted out of clay which broke and is glued back with the technique of Kintsugi. In the middle includes a series of flowers made out of dry leaves and paper showing its interconnectedness between the crafted artificial vs natural blooms. It combines a series of themes with reference to human experience, fragility and resilience, decay and renewal, transformation, and our ability to embrace change and bloom. While we refer to lights, shadows, permanence, transience, they remind us that transformation is not only about breaking free of obstacles but also embracing change and the tension between contrasts. A compelling dialogue with the  class provided me with a profound tension between artificial vs natural elements. While many viewed them as opposites, I began to question why they couldn’t be seen as one, as they are after all inherently interconnected. 

This notion brought me to Bruno Latour’s book We Have Never Been Modern which describes his critique of the modern world’s tendency to divide the artificial from the natural. Latour challenges the ideas of ‘modernity’ where thoughts of humans and society (social constructs) are separate from nature (objective reality). He argues that this separation are illusions that we create as everything exists within a web of interconnected relationships. Instead, the combination between these two constructs create more hybrids that are neither purely natural nor purely cultural. When we pretend they don’t exist, it leads to blind spots in how we address the real-world problems. Within the art context, the blending of natural materials—such as clay, stone, and pigments—with cultural expressions, themes, and methods—like political or social commentary—reveals how art challenges modernity’s illusion of separating nature from culture. With that in mind, both my artworks echo that interplay between artificial and natural elements by aligning with the concept of hybrids. In the first work, the use of wood transformed using human craftsmanship, synthetic flowers out of paper representing nature, and industrial mesh blur the boundaries between nature and culture. A fellow classmate mentioned that the wood is natural, although it is handmade by humans. This gave me an impression of us trying to distinguish natural and artificial instead of simply looking at it as a hybrid. This really analyses the concept of how there is no distinction between the two worlds.  The frame artwork symbolizes that relationship of how nature and culture escapes the confinement of the frame highlighting the entangled relationships with me as a human, as an artist, and my own connection with the universe. 

While the above explores Latour’s book in a literal sense, I grasped a more interpretive opinion on his arguments. With regards to the process of metamorphosis, transformation, interconnectedness, it reminded me of my roots of Hinduism where we believe that all life forms and elements of existence are part of a continuum, as a unified whole. Similar to the inseparability of nature and culture, Hindu philosophy sees no true division between the material and the spiritual, or the natural and man-made. In addition, I was able to see a deep connection to metamorphosis where I developed my own model out of this which would summarize all the previous reflections and connections to research. I would describe my overall artistic practice with influence from my learning in Hindu beliefs. Metaphorically, with a platform like Hinduism (the cocoon), I can go through a spiritual growth and development to help me metamorphosize into an enlightened being. In my own artistic practice, I have learned to metamorphosize into who I am today as an artist as a result of the constant continuum of experiments, curiosity, exploring various materials, facing obstacles and challenges, and many more. But with reference to Latour’s ideals, all this spiritual, or in this case, artistic growth is a result of various hybrids formed by my interactions with nature- social constructs and objective realities. However, this does not mean two different things, instead, they are still a whole. Like how I would describe it, a butterfly is nothing but a caterpillar revealed, and a caterpillar is nothing but a butterfly concealed. It simply describes the cyclical nature of life and our constant interactions with it. 

By referring to these sources above, these perspectives have helped me reframe my understanding of art and my materials that I use. It has profoundly helped me reflect on my usage of materials that would blend nature and culture not only in a literal sense but also metaphorically with regards to Hinduism, spirituality, metamorphosis, my own artistic journey, and even life. With Latour’s ideals of hybrids formed by the interweave of nature and society, and Coccia’s view on wholeness and everything is continuous, I reflect on my art as a tool that blurs the lines between the natural world and humans. These reflections have made me realize all about art, life, materials, the tensions between artificial and natural, fragility and strength, tranquility and permanence of time are all part of a whole and cyclical nature of life. Although each provides a unique perspective, materialistic, philosophical, and spiritual, they all share one commonality with my work which is - transcending the frame, trusting the process of growth that would help me metamorphosize into an enlightened being or artist in this case. As they are all parts of a whole, interconnected and complete. Just like this saying from an ancient Hindu scripture - Isha Upanishad, that symbolizes this;

oṃ | pūrṇamadaḥ pūrṇamidaṃ pūrṇātpūrṇamudacyate |

pūrṇasya pūrṇamādāya pūrṇamevāvaśiṣyate ||

In english - The whole is all that is invisible. The whole is all that is visible. The whole was born out of the whole. When the whole is absorbed into the whole, the whole alone remains. 

The above mantra encapsulates the idea of wholeness and completeness/ interconnectedness in all aspects of existence. It teaches that everything, whether visible or invisible, is inherently whole. Likewise Bruno Latour and Coccia convey in their books the interconnectedness between natural and cultural realities. It reminds us that everything, even if broken or taken apart from, is a whole or complete within itself. This profound truth resonates deeply with my reflections on art, life, and materials, where every tension, transformation, or fragment is a part of a larger interconnected cycle.