I Mistook Being Studied for Being Understood, 2026
Part of Doll, Interrupted

Installation
Acrylic and alcohol ink on paper, pelvis sculpture, synthetic hair
Installation dimensions: 85 × 185 × 27 cm

Doll, Interrupted is about what happens when attention becomes interpretation.
In I Mistook Being Studied for Being Understood, a Rorschach-derived painting sits beside a hyperreal pelvis sculpture with a single fall of hair. The painting is made through bodily contact, transfer, and imprint. The inkblot changes with whoever is looking; the pelvis makes the body literal. Hair brings something intimate and autobiographical back into it.

HARDEN THE FUCK UP is reproduced verbatim from language directed at the artist within an intimate exchange. Beside bone, the command stops being metaphorical. Bone remodels under repeated mechanical load. The body can literally reorganise around force. The accompanying performance video, Your Intensity Does Not Scare Me, extends the same logic onto the artist’s body: ink moves from paper to skin, hair becomes tether, and the artist enters the same system of scrutiny. Across painting, sculpture, performance and song, Doll, Interrupted asks what happens when being watched, desired, assessed and idealised is mistaken for being known.

Photos // Laura Bikulčytė