Shae Behari-Leak

VIRTUAL TOUR

ARTIST CATALOGUE

Liminal Embrace

My perception of the distortion of identity. This is a photographic and videographic exploration of the fragmented self, exploring the ways in which my identity changes, is obscured, lost and transformed. I focus on finding a visual language to express the internal conflict between the different versions of myself. Growing up mixed-race, I have had to face the battle of belonging and understanding the hybridity of my identity. The internal battle I face is the sense of belonging to others, a sense of community, or belonging to myself. The continual internal conflict and journey with myself as to who I really am. 

Throughout my life, I have changed and morphed into different versions, characters, roles and ways of being, having to code-switch in the different realms of my life. An actor playing different roles in the story of my life, each fighting for center stage to be seen and to belong. As I have changed, it has become easier to lose sight of who I am at the core. I have lost myself, and at times become an unrecognisable being in my own eyes. I represent this visually as my portrait is glitching, shedding, drowning, shifting and emerging. A fluid being, constantly flowing into her next embodiment. I investigate the birth and death of the different versions of myself, the mourning and the regeneration. My distortion is both wound and evolution. I focus on capturing the various states of distortion of my self-portrait and the hybridity of my identity, as it is fluid, unsettled and transformative. As my face changes, melts, is molded and glitches, my portrait becomes unclear, and the lines blur between who I am, and who I have been. 

I explore the emergence of different versions of myself, as well as the letting go of my past selves. Which Shae I choose to be, and which one I choose to be swallowed by the darkness.   Movement and motion are key in my visuals and concept, as identity is ever-changing and in motion, never fixed or confined.  Colour forms my portraits as extensions of my feelings. An all-consuming entity, as I exist within it. The colour red represents the birth and emergence of myself, its fiery hue, a burning sensation within myself to find who I am. The parts of myself that are being awoken in their fluidity and motion. The colour blue expresses my states and feelings of being lost. 

The contemplation and sorrow I feel in the loss of who I am and where I belong. My blue portraits co-exist with a darkness that creeps up and consumes my being, pulling me back into a lost and forgotten space. The relationship between the red and blue expresses how growth and change of identity is hybrid and always in motion, and that losing oneself is all part of finding oneself again. Separate entities fusing together in a beautiful, harmonious way. Together, they form a new colour and connection, magenta. This represents a collision of my identities and an unresolved tension within myself. The fusion of colours in my videos embodies my hybridity, inner conflict and fragmented identity, coming together as one into a new space. One that is liminal and of emergence, a becoming.