Niko Berger

Corporeal Subterranea

Within the western canon of cartesian thought, the body should not hold power. When it rises up its impact must be minimized: shower, shave, clean and contain. The rules of order imposed by culture keep the body subordinated to the mind. So what becomes of identity, agency, and power when the corporeality of the human body dominates rational form? Can the grotesque body, the abject sexual object of externalized Corporeal Subterranea, become a radical state of being mirroring queer embodiment?

My sculptural practice is founded within my personal experience as a gender-nonbinary individual, and much of my work could be classified as self portraiture. I am interested in gender identity politics and the conflicts created surrounding corporeal embodiment: the qualities of existing within the confines of the body’s finite matter. More specifically, I explore the dialogue between abjection, autonomy and adornment where the overgrown and uncontained body dominates form. My practice uses steel, latex, resin, plaster, soft sculpture, and more to explore material transformations through process and experimentation. I am interested in the visual agency of matter to transform itself where it crosses the corporeal edge, and how abjection can hold immense power when embraced.

To be content within one's abject self is to be radically sexual, as fetishization is permanently linked to the abject body, and opalescence represents such abject pleasures within my work. Through manipulating the visual agency of matter to transform itself, these sculptures exist in a state of constant transformation similar to the transience within queer identities; Pearls become pimples, hairs become roots while teeth sprout like mineral rock growth. With these methods I make sculptures that express the difficulties, while aspiring to transcend, the limits of defined social constructs and boundaries imposed on my body while confronting the abject otherness that is gender dysphoria.

www.nikoberger.org

@niko_art_live