Substrate(a)

Sculptural Fiber Art

Substrate explores the ways people gradually build emotional and psychological layers around themselves. Inspired by organic growth found in nature — bark, lichen, erosion, overgrowth — the series reflects on how experiences, habits, social roles, and memory accumulate over time, reshaping the self.

Built slowly by hand from raffia, textile, and recycled materials, the sculpture develops through repetition and accumulation, mirroring the gradual formation of human identity itself.

Substrate (a) is the first work in the series. Further pieces will explore new forms, scales, and configurations — tracing the endless variety of ways we learn to inhabit ourselves.

These layers can become protective, decorative, even beautiful. Yet beneath them, something more vulnerable often remains hidden.

The works examine this tension between exposure and protection, surface and essence, asking how much of ourselves is revealed — and how much becomes buried under the structures we grow in order to survive.