SHOW STATEMENT:
Trauma Spectrum is an exhibition by artist Emily Flynn-DeLay exploring the nonlinear process of healing from trauma. The show features three full-figure sculptures, each positioned in direct relation to two dimensional painted objects they face or observe. These painted elements act as visual stand-ins for memory, perception, and internalized experience.
Through the physical tension between sculptural bodies and painted imagery, Trauma Spectrum examines how trauma is revisited, confronted, and gradually recontextualized over time. The figures do not depict moments of impact, but rather states of reflection and captures the quiet, ongoing work of processing what remains.
The exhibition invites viewers to consider healing not just as a single moment of resolution, but as a spectrum of awareness, distance, and change.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
My work explores the world of emotion and community, the human experience that at times feels isolated but in reality is woven together in ways we often overlook. Specifically the subtle feelings that emerge in fleeting moments. Such as the tension before a conversation you have prepared for but cant be be ready for, the ache of lose in near-connection, or the pause between recognition and avoidance. I aim to give these interior states tangible form, transforming private sensations into shared visual experiences.
Through sculpture and painting, I translate psychological nuance into material language. Through various sculptural methods such as body casting, carving and scupting, I build textured surfaces that function as emotional skin. They might be cracked, smooth, or bruised, though each bearing traces of touch, vulnerability, and restraint they translate into a language of emotion and connection.
Collaboration is central to my process. By working closely with models to reconstruct particular emotional moments, I study how context and gesture shape feeling. Color serves as an emotional register, where shifts in tone and saturation echo the intensity or stillness of experience. Ultimately, my practice is an act of translation, from sensation to substance. I hope that in encountering my work, viewers recognize fragments of their own emotional landscape and find comfort or discovery.