Speculum - The Eye Of The Beholder

Driven by the proverb ’beauty lies in the eye of the beholder’, the road to creating Speculum was paved by a desire to study not only the concept of beauty in one’s surroundings but the way the device with which that beauty is perceived (i.e. the eyes) embody it. Like a glass is recognized for the fluid it contains, the eyes reflect the beauty they perceive in the world. This perception is purely sensory meaning it occurs through the engagement of one or more of the five human senses. The most immediate of these senses is one’s sight and that is what drove me to study the human eye in my quest to talk about the perception of beauty. I began to see the structure of the human eye as the mirror image of all that one is able to experience in the world with their eyes. Speculum is a series of home embellishments ranging from cushions to table runners to lamps embellished with the patterns I derived from my introspective understanding of this idea. In creating a series of home embellishments, I wanted to carry forward the idea of a mirror image projecting an idea first from the human consciousness onto the vessel of its perception (i.e the eyes) and then its projection back onto ones most private environment (i.e one’s home). Each piece is digitally printed and then hand-embroidered to depict various emotions and elements in each kind of stitch being incorporated.