15 * 20
2019-2020 Touch of the Glance is a self-portrait project using blurriness to distort assumptions around sexuality and appearance. The closer the viewer gets, the blurrier the image becomes challenging typical dynamics between subject and observer.
Accompanied by Braille, the images offer physicaldescriptions that, like the visuals, deliberately avoid referencing identity or sexuality. The project stems from the artist’s lifelong struggle with dual identity, shaped by the need to adapt behaviors in public and private spaces, and the censorship imposed on their body. Economic precarity also pushed questions of identity into the background, prompting a deeper connection with other marginalized communities, especially people with visual disabilities, who experience society’s pressure to remain unseen.
Braille functions in three ways: it invites multisensory access; it forms a paradoxical intimacy between artist and viewer, challenging taboos around touch; and it proposes touch as a valid way of “reading” an image, disrupting traditional exhibition norms and reducing the sacred distance between artwork and audience.