Ellen Gunji is a fine arts studio student whose practice centers on painting and ceramics. Originally from Pensacola, Florida, and raised in Lawrenceville, Georgia, she plans to return to her community after graduation. Before applying to MFA programs, she will be working as an events intern at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Her current series, Numb Sensations, visualizes the vivid pains and distortions of her dreams, using washy layers and restrained color to reveal how the subconscious blurs, heightens, and destabilizes bodily experience.
Project Statement
Numb Sensations is a series of paintings of vivid tactile feelings that arise in my dreams. These sensations echo familiar bodily experiences, yet they manifest as slippery visions that disregard the conventions of waking life. The series draws from dreamlike elements felt within my dreams, such as static pain, constricting breath, or flames against the face. Though my dreams may start in a mundane world, there is an escalation that turns the space antagonistic, causing my own dreams to embody an invasion. This series serves as a way for me to better understand and confront the unsettling sensations that linger long after I wake. This series is visually translated using a limited color palette to evoke the eerie and uncanny atmosphere of the metaphysical world. Washy layers create varying levels of tangibility in each composition. Areas of higher opacity and detail correspond to the experiences felt most strongly, while other areas fade into washes, emphasizing the fluid nature of dreams. Numb Sensations is a way to share these dream experiences, which are uniquely my own yet rooted in sensations that others can still recognize and relate to.
Artist Statement
My creative practice is sustained by dreams. I paint, draw, and sculpt to reveal what my subconscious unravels from my repressed thoughts and memories. Drawing from my most vividly painful and uncomfortable memories of dreams, I connect with and give form to this intangible realm to process them further. Using the human form in my paintings, I utilize limited color palettes that keep hues luminous and clear. Washes that vary in opacity represent the shifting spectrum of realness within the memories or physical sensations felt during sleep.
