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

A blurred image of a camera set up for a livestream. There is a figure on the screen crawling toward the camera
Andrea Illés performs as part of 'Stranger than fiction', 2024, West Space Studio. Photography by Kenneth Suico.

sorry I was so hungry is a durational performance by Andrea Illés that grapples with the Sisyphean task of image-making as true representation of the self.

For three weeks, the artist occupies the West Space Studio making images with her body viewable both in-person during gallery hours and on an unbroken 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 am performing for several 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 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 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 view of Andrea Illes on livestream on a mac computer in the office of West Space Gallery. A blurred figure sits in the background
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.

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

Related

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

Stranger than fiction
Archie Barry, Teresa Busuttil, Nicholas Currie, Andrea Illés, Rosie Isaac, Basim Magdy, Rä di Martino, Sammaneh Pourshafighi and Joanna Kitto
29 June → 31 Aug 2024

A film still from Basim Magdy's film 'FEARDEATHLOVEDEATH'. A close up shot of an eye with the reflection of a face within the iris. The whole image is cast in red colour.

Joanna Kitto, On storytelling and subversion
2024

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.

WARM ARCHIVE
Stacey Collee, Andrea Illés and Alice Tsiavos
22 Apr → 21 May 2023

Andrea Illés, 'no rock no flower' (detail), 2025.

no rock no flower
Andrea Illés
6 Sept → 25 Oct 2025