The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

In 2010, Emilie L. Gossiaux lost her vision in a tragic accident. This not only radically altered her perception of the world around her, but forever transformed her life and art. Her drawings, paintings, sculptures, and installations are invented from memories and created solely through touch. For 52, Gossiaux presents ten ceramic objects from a series that represents a body in pieces: a foot, breasts, an ankle, neck, arms, shoulder, and an ear. Each object, corresponding with her own or a family member’s body fragment, is adorned with a single tattoo. Coated in successive layers of oil paint to coordinate with their individualized skin tones, Gossiaux excises the tattoos from the clay and fills the body pieces with a black expanding pillow foam, which seeps out from the cuts. The incisions resemble tattooed flesh and, as the artist explains, are “a form of self-expression, like your insides coming out for others to see.”