happy’s house
2022 - 2024
Happy's House is about the deception of our memories. Strong emotion is connected to our most intimate memories. More often than not, these same recollections deceive us and play a scene in our heads, like a glitched, broken movie clip.
This collection reflects the memories that we hold so deeply inside of us. Each resin sculpture contains a plushie at its center. The sculptures are masked and textured with foam, clay, spray paint and acrylic, mimicking the dream-like state memories can reside in. At first glance, the plushie looks familiar, almost identical to the plushie I played with as a child. However, as you come closer, it is noticeable that the plushie is poorly stitched with fabric that does not match the original.
These imperfections are meant to convey how skewed our memories can be. So many of us are stuck replaying memories that can be clouded by our emotions and can pollute an entire time period of our lives, and continue to influence our future.
happy face
24 x 20 x 6 cm
benny
28 x 25 x 5 cm
patty
20 x 22 x 13 cm
baxter
20 x 22 x 10 cm
enid
25 x 20 x 23 cm
COSMIC frog
19 x 42 x 71 cm
The "Cosmic Frog” marks the culmination of Happy’s House collection, delving into memory and perception. Emerging from primal slime, its metamorphic form embodies a profound journey, symbolizing the struggle between clarity and distortion. The half-covered, half-exposed resin frog represents the conflict within memories—some clear, some obscured. This duality mirrors the complex nature of recollection, concluding the exploration of memory and deception in Happy’s House.
process
process
I chose plushies from my childhood that I had deeply rooted memories with, and recreated them. Each ‘imposter’ plushie has similar but different fabric and yarn from the original. Poorly stitched with no formal measurements and rough cuts, the imperfections are only noticeable when you take a closer examination.
Clay was used to form the molds. It was important for me to use my hands to form the molds in order to ensure my imprintment into the sculptures. To have the ability to create the creases and folds symbolize that our memories are built from our experiences and molded by our emotions.
Each plushie is cast into resin and is floating at the center of the sculpture, representing how we hold on to certain memories, frozen in time and space.
Clay, spray foam, and acrylic paint were used in the formation of the dream-cloud, layering and surrounding each plushie. A dream cloud represents the uncertainty of the memory we hold. When we dream, we recollect or reimagine an experience that we have that is constructed by our emotions.
