Skully

Skully was my first cast sculpture that paved the way for several themes throughout my work. Themes of memory, understanding of the body and mind’s capabilities, exploring the skeletal system and using 3D technologies all started in the making of Skully. 

Understanding how the mind works and which brain lobes are responsible for particular behaviours and actions led to the analogy of a cityscape, with different city regions taking on various characteristics. As a point of understanding the early stages of a traumatic brain injury, this artwork was the first visual expression of my new reality of living with a brain injury. 

The skull was a cast taken from a dental skull. The raised blocks covering the skull’s exterior represent a cityscape that began as a drawing of an amalgamation of different cities I have visited and places I hoped to see, acquiring parts of the cityscape through Google Maps and others through memory. From drawing an imaginary map, I traced the map to create a simple version that could be laser cut to create a three-dimensional version of the imagined cityscape. With a mold of the birds-eye view of the cityscape, it was applied piece by piece to the skull’s outer surface in the wax casting process.