Avatar Lilith @ Nunu Fine Art
In conjunction with Chiao-Han Chueh’s solo exhibition, INTIMATE PLAY at Nunu Fine Art New York on June 23, 2023, Avatar Lilith was asked to performed a solo act for the opening evening. Along with stephanie mei huang, Chenée Daley, Sasha Leshner, Nathalyn Nunoo, and Bethany Hughes, Avatar Lilith was invited to respond to the show offering an interpretation and inquiry to the artist’s work.
From Artsy: “Chiao-Han Chueh's paintings challenge social constraints of women's bodies with uninhibited female figures in surrealistic environments. Her art explores the complexity of human relationships, social pressures, insecurity, anxieties, and attraction.”
As a response to Chao-Han's work, Avatar Lilith wonders, what would happen if the figures in her paintings had come to life to offer a performance, or perhaps open a portal into an alternate universe - an exhuberant and defiant one? Upon visiting the gallery for the first time a particular painting stood out as an inspiration; Dance Me to the End of the World (2023). "Dance Me to the End of the World (2023) is a richer, more expansive work, its ambience that of a brothel, carnival, or cabaret, and focused on a commanding central figure that is a combination of dominatrix and mistress of ceremonies," writes Lilly Wei from Studio International. In the performance, Avatar Lilith embodies a virtual and flesh domina, donning the same type of thigh high boots in the painting on her own body. Twisting and turning her body, she begins a sonic ritual to guide the audience into this alternate territory.
Using vocal modulation and layering, ethereal synthesized textures, Avatar Lilith opens up sonic and performative portals to access alternative forms of relational knowledge. In-between states of material shifts, power dynamics, and flesh as communication were pivotal themes for this performance. By slowing down time with the pacing and scale of her exaggeratedly slow walk, and ambient sonic textures, she invites the audience to expand into a virtual spatiotemporal alternative reality - if only for a moment.
The performance begins with Avatar Lilith descending into the gallery space from a staircase behind the audience. With the loud, slow clanging of her high heel PVC boots echoing across the white gallery space, she makes a slow eternal promenade down the aisle of the seated audience - a "seam" through which she penetrates, slowing down time with her gait. Chiaohan's paintings with twisted female figures in improbable postures reflect Avatar Lilith's movements throughout the piece. Avatar Lilith, situated in front of the paintings slowly dissolves the membranes of the material boundaries of sound, paint, body, and desire. She performs with her a “cosmic egg,” a remnant of the Digital Seam that functions as a sonic instrument, guiding the soundscape and filling the room with bellowing echoes and textures.