“sorry I was so hungry”
Andrea Illés
9 Aug → 31 Aug 2024
Studio

A naked woman stands in the sunlit corner of a room with her arms up holding each corner of the room. The shadows on the window shape are covering her body
Andrea Illés, 'sorry I was so hungry', 2024, West Space Studio. Screenshot from the livestream.

sorry I was so hungry is a durational performance grappling with the Sisyphean task of image-making as true representation of the self.

For three weeks, Andrea Illés occupies the West Space Studio, making images with her body. Her accumulating score is viewable in-person during gallery hours and on a 24/7 livestream, screening in the gallery and on our personal devices.

"I am looking to classical sculpture, myth, and my experiences to expand how a body, it's stories, and its failures can be comprehended.
My research originates from an inability to hold or move my body in positions and alignments that make images that reflect how I understand myself. I search for figurations that hold a glimmer of my self-image and try to replicate them in front of audiences. This is an impossible task, I can never posture myself into the grace of Daphne or Hermaphroditus, even if my body position is accurate. You can never fully understand how I am feeling or vice versa. Both the failure and the faithful attempt are important to me.
In my experience, 'full' empathy is myth. When trying to understand space or feeling we flatten their dimensions. Flattening can diminish understanding but it can also elevate understanding beyond the confusion of spatial or verbal communication or even the simplifying power of categorisation, especially when it is accompanied by complicating elements. A flattened image with complication can offer a glimpse of something inexplicable. With an interested in the relationship between narrative and binaries like deception<>truth; real<>imagined; inside<>outside, I perform for consecutive days, methodically translating image and experience. This plays out in front of a camera, that acts as a mirror, while the faltering translations, and the transitions between them, become a score." — Andrea Illés
A woman sitting in front of a computer bathed in red light uses a webcam reflection to do her eyeliner.
A blurred image of a camera set up for a livestream. There is a figure on the screen crawling toward the camera
A person with dark curly hair and a knitted jumper stands in a room with a red hue, they rest their forearm across their head.
A figure bathed in Pink and Red light stands behind a blue door that has black and white pictures of marble statues taped to it. On the door it says "S4 WEST SPACE"
a woman is crouched down reading from a book into a microphone in a small room while being observed by viewers.
A woman is on her hands and knees performing in a small room surrounded by people. She is bathed in pink light and is looking back over her shoulder towards the camera.
A mac computer sits on the desk in the West Space Office. On the screen we see a livestream performance and people watching.
A mac computer screen sits in the west space office with a figure holding a microphone is close up on the screen. She has long white nails and long dark curly hair
A hand outstretched holds an iphone watching a livestream performance. On the phone screen we see a woman holding a microphone with long curly hair.
A woman is pressing her body into the wall while being illuminated by sun shining through a window
a woman stands in the back of a room lit up with pink light. She is leaning on the wall and wearing a shirt blue dress with one arm behind her head.
In a pink lit room, Andrea props herself up on her left arm and bent knee. Her right leg is extended long behind her and her right arm is on her waist.

Andrea Illés is an artist working with movement, sound, and image. Her (often) durational performance based practice centres on overwhelm, agony, and awe and their co-existence with (non) restrictive performativities. Illés is interested in the interplay between stigma and embodiment and embraces abjection and failure as possibility.

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A bright projection of a close up shot of an orange eye illuminates the silhouttes of several figures watching the projection. The eye is widened in shock

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People watching a person speaking to the microphone in front of a screen, footage displaying real time by the other person filming her with a camcorder.

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