MAYA PERRY

TUSSLE: Your exhibition explores the fractured nature of memory and its retelling, often through repetitive dream sequences that evoke a "dream remembered before it ever existed." From a Freudian perspective, recurring dreams are often seen as the psyche's way of grappling with unresolved trauma or repressed desires. Do you see the repetitive bedroom dream sequences as a way to process these painful memories, or are they more of a metaphorical tool to evoke the feeling of being trapped in a cycle of hurt and healing?

 

MAYA PERRY: When I was a child, I would create a room in my mind that in some sense embodied everything I’d ever need in one place. Like an escape haven. An alternative space that I could internally sculpt and recreate. The bedroom, a place that had felt stripped of its safety, was still also a structure, an idea, a world of my own. The two co-existed. This imagined space being both incredibly foreign and incredibly familiar. When painting this bed over and over, I found myself less and less attached to its figure, and by the act of repeating, I began to feel that the shape itself would abstract its form. In this abstraction, there is both a cycle of pain and of pleasure. There is a grasping for understanding: is understanding a form of healing?  There is a risk of retraumatization in the hurt of excavating and seeking an answer. The hole that is formed within the sheets: what is its depth, and where does it lead to? The bed repeats, but within each iteration, there is a shift, a different perspective on what’s repeated.

 

 

TUSSLE: In your work, you use a complex metaphor of a hybrid wolf/dog/human creature to explore trauma and the mother-child relationship. The dog represents loyalty and a desire for care, while the wolf embodies a more feral, angry, or untamed part of the self. Given this duality, what do you feel the moth symbolizes in your work, especially when it appears near a child's bed? Does it represent an attraction to light and transformation, or perhaps a more fragile and fleeting aspect of your subject's psyche?

 

MAYA PERRY: This moth in particular is called Cymbalophora oertzeni. It lives in Palestine, Lebanon, and Israel. Moths have always been represented as symbols of protection in my work. These two moths appearing on each end of the bed serve as guardians. The dove, a symbol of peace, lies in place of the child with a running dog as its heartbeat. The dog represents survival and resilience. Wings cross borders; they embody a possibility. No one is free until all are free. 

 

When we protect children, we are breaking cycles of trauma and healing our inner child. Therefore, it is not only children we must protect but also one another, witnessing our inner children within our adult selves. The grief of a childhood that is ruptured by violence suffocates. And it can conclude in a darkness that is impossible to see through. Moths are attracted to light, as both a detriment and as a gift. I see the moth as a metaphor for the psyche’s fragile yet persistent ability to find light within darkness.

 

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TUSSLE:  Your art probes the fragile thresholds between human and nonhuman life, and you mention how violence can "reorganize relationships and identities." Your artist statement concludes with a powerful realization: "Realizing that all along it was just a child." How do your hybrid creatures help you explore this idea of a child's identity being fractured or reconfigured by trauma and attachment, and how does this ultimately lead back to an acknowledgment of the inner child?

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MAYA PERRY:The hybrid figures of dog/wolf/human are ways of embodying contradictions within the self. They hold together aspects of the self that can split apart under trauma. By giving these contradictions form, I’m able to explore how a sense of self can be fractured or reorganized through relationships of attachment and violence. The remnants of these memories become associated with surrealism and a puzzle-like connection between animal, human, object, and form. There, this dream-like reality is introduced . When reality is violently blurred, shapeshifting becomes a way to tell stories outside the logic of how, why, when, or where. The shapeshifter is, at times, a form of dissociation, but within that dissociation, there is also play and exploration.

 

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TUSSLE:Your exhibition includes a soft synth composition that repeats and gradually dissolves until only a deep breath remains. This use of sound parallels the exhibition's focus on repetition and the dissolution of boundaries. How do you see the aural experience, particularly the repetitive loop, as a way to engage with the psychological themes of trauma and memory, especially since a "loop" can be a metaphor for a recurring thought or unresolved emotional pattern? 

 

MAYA PERRY: In relation to the cycle of hurt and healing, sound has always felt to me to be incredibly therapeutic. I have found that the repetition of sound has been a way to regulate my body. Looping sounds have played a meditative role in my life, both as a listener and a musician. Playing and listening to repetitive notes, vibrations, and rhythms can counteract the traumatic forms of looping and break negative patterns of thought. The breath that follows the soft synth breaks the loop. The amp becomes an organ. The breath is not attached to a self but rather is an invitation to pause, to sense a presence, to breathe. Looping is inherent in life. It mirrors the body’s own memory. It is a reminder that the breath itself is a repetition. Some repetitions can cause us harm, and some repetitions can bring us to a presence.