Infestation
Year Completed: 2026
Medium / Materials: Cardstock, metal wire, black spray paint, masking tape
Dimensions: 9” x 11”
Status: In Personal Collection
Series / Collection: Experience through Insects
Exhibition:
The Process
First, I decided I wanted to depict the brain for my piece using two solid colors, and chose to do so with cardstock instead of paint to create stronger contrast. I chose to use a brain-like textured brown board and paint it with a light pink acrylic wash to accentuate the wrinkles and make it pink like a brain. Then, I sketched a brain design on the paper, zooming it to create an immersed perspective and–with difficulty–cut away the lines to create highlight brain pieces. I glued those in as I cut them out onto the textured red fabric cardstock background to reveal the shadows.
Initially, I was going to make the centipedes out of black–and possibly brown cardstock, but I chose to make them out of wire, painted black, instead to create more dimension and unique materials within the piece. However, the final bugs were too faint compared to the busy background, do i filled them in with masking tape and added more layers of black spray paint.
Afterwards, I realized that I wanted the brain to be pinker to be more realistic and reduced background contrast to highlight the bugs. Finally, i dedicated the photo in photoshop to emphasize the bus more and create the vibrancy I wanted. This piece was initially going to be a “mini pice”, but it promoted me to experiment in a really new way that challenged and captivated me, and it turned into one of my favorite pieces.
Ideas
The experience that motivated me for this piece was the struggle of intrusive and negative thoughts and how they can infest your brain. I decided to depict centipedes because of their creepy, crawly, and downright disgusting nature. Negative thought patterns often trap people in misery due to how strongly they influence one’s own mind and how difficult they are to outroot: just like a bug infestation. Such internal corrupters act as slimy agents of destruction that can pervert your mind; they make themselves extremely difficult to eradicate by weaving within wrinkles of your brain seamlessly and hiding within your own identify. I attempted to convert this disturbing reality with my piece which comrats the vibrant, clean, and natural human mind with the dark, mechanical, creeping centipedes of depravity.
