Sara Naim

Naim is primarily concerned with perception, and its ability to alter through shifting polarities. Interrogating different modalities of seeing, her work deconstructs the sinuous line between perception and construct. Her practice aims to transcend form and their boundary because, she argues, solidity and separation are constructs. Naim refers to theoretical physics and its implications on understanding boundaries, to offer a different perspective to the classic notion of solid objects having impenetrable lines, suggesting a fluidity that transcends impenetrability and linearity.

Examining borders in this way, her work envisages a collective space that deconstructs separations - between country and territory, skin and surface, pleasure and pain. Playing with this notion of nonduality, different dimensions and mediums coexist; photography is sculptural, sculptures are painterly, and paintings are photographic.

Using a methodology that is both forensic and performative, she employs her own body to index changing states. Edges of her work trace the organic shapes of her subjects of study, whether this is a single cell or a topography. Amplified dead skin cells, chemical reactions and intended glitches abstract into sculptural landscapes. An oscillation between intimacy and distance occurs through this dialects of scale, offering a lens on internal, external and unseen spheres.

In her work, the corrupt imagery of technological vulnerability is analogous to physical manifestations of emotional vulnerability such as with reddening cheeks, stuttering or goose bumps. Here she asks: Where does internal and external meet? How can we use polarity as a tool to shift perspective?

By transgressing the boundaries of perception, Naim’s work challenges restrictive perspectives on separateness, whether individual, social or national. As the building blocks of her small-scale samples transform into large-scale immersive installations, she tries to find the distinction between perception and construct, form and it’s representation.