Stain

PARI

Stain represents the mark that refuses to fade away – the bruise on the body, the scar of history, the wound on the land or the after-trace on digital terrains. But often the stain is seen through the eyes of society, and imprinted by systems that strive to scrub away all that is non-normative. The stain is a mark of rebellion, unruly and filled with vitality.
In Pari’s 30th exhibition, artists hone in on the stains left behind on porous bodies. To reckon with dark feelings and realities, some turn to horror to process experiences of displacement, trauma and dysphoria. Others resist in subtle defiance against being categorised, embracing lived-in bodies in their continually changing forms.
If we look closely at the stain, we see the wealth of colours concealed within. Playful, enduring, and honest, these ingrained marks become a record of personal and cultural myth – all visible through a glass darkly.

These are residues of multiple selves and their various transformations. Stains of performing corporeal selves and remnants of virtual selves as they slip in and out of fantasy and reality, cyberspace and physicality. Materialising photographic input of the surveilled body, the works are reflections, visually and materially mapping the relationship between the body and the machines that watch them. Each work is a concrete surface stained or inscribed with photographic investigations of the performance of the body which emerges from the knowledge of perpetually being watched. Varying surfaces, material qualities and scales speak to either bodily movement or machinic rigidity, synthesised to accentuate the inextricable and symbiotic relationship between the body and machine. Many mechanisms were involved in creating the works including photographic apparatuses, body-tracking iphone software, 3d printers, photogrammetry software, mass production fabricators - all of which are messages in themselves. The works dissect how the body alters its script and performance when influenced by machines, algorithmically curated streams of imagery and omnipresent corporate surveillance. I reflect on how my agency is being corrupted living in the superpanopticon.

(from left to right) Revised Corporeal Scan, 2023-2025, acrylic on dye sublimation print on aluminium, 35.5cm x 27.9cm x 1.5cm, Embrace, 2025, cement, cradled in phone stand 20 x 15 cm, Corporeal Scan UV Map, 2025, protein powder and silicone mounted on tablet stand, 20 x 25 x 2 cm, MeThreeSixty (V2), 2025, dye sublimation print on die-cut aluminium, 130 x 29.5 cm

Maculate (Reach), 2025, image transfer on polylactic acid, 13 x 43 cm

(from left to right) Embrace, 2025, cement, cradled in phone stand 20 x 15 cm, Corporeal Scan UV Map, 2025, protein powder and silicone mounted on tablet stand, 20 x 25 x 2 cm, MeThreeSixty (V2), 2025, dye sublimation print on die-cut aluminium, 130 x 29.5 cm

Maculate (Reach), 2025, image transfer on polylactic acid, 13 x 43 cm

Revised Corporeal Scan, 2023-2025, acrylic on dye sublimation print on aluminium, 35.5cm x 27.9cm x 1.5cm (photography Davis Suyasa)

Maculate (Reach), 2025, image transfer on polylactic acid, 13 x 43 cm