After 5 months being back in Europe I caught myself feeling divided with my body and mind between two places. Even though my physical body was in Europe, I realised my mind/head is still in Aotearoa New Zealand, and that I didn't fully ARRIVED yet. This particular sensation expressed in the collages "Hybrid Identities" I started doing during that time.

These paintings are a continuation of the project "Hybrid Identities" following first explorations in collage medium. They depicts a feeling of being out of sync with yourself — as if your body and mind are no longer moving through the same place. There’s a quiet disorientation in carrying your thoughts elsewhere, while the world around you expects presence. It’s the split between where you are and where your inner life insists on staying. A kind of static identity caught between coordinates, where nothing fully lands, and the sense of self feels suspended — displaced yet searching for coherence. 

The experience of living and working in multiple places around the world, relocating myself every few years generated a sense of displacement. I started wondering 'what is one's sense of Self?' and how much environment has an influence over the Identity. 

Hybrid Identities
2025—ongoing
acrylic on cotton
various sizes

List of titles (from left to right, from top to the bottom):
1. Elsa-Dori, 20 × 25 × 1,5 cm
2. Sierra, 25 × 25 × 1,5 cm
3. Shell, 24 × 30 × 1,5 cm
4. An Echo I Can’t Place, 18 × 24 × 1,5 cm