Sten is a London-based Estonian artist, interested in the articulation of the unseen. In his practice, the image functions as a tool that explicates the relationship between a secular body and mystical experience.
Above: Seeing In The Dark ('21) - three- part photogram, photographic paper, 25x20 cm
The Dark Mother arrives, it is said, at a dangerous moment, to deliver us from the imprisonment of passivity.
This project, entitled The Snake In My Face, is an ongoing travelogue of my meeting with Her, as She sets alight an internal landscape enveloped in darkness.
My record begins at the scene of the bedroom with plant medicine and continues under guided hypnosis, where a conflict of entangled voices begins to find resolve. As Her overlay of energy penetrates my body and breathes for me, it burns through the emotional gunk stored in the flesh. At the time of release, I document the thought-form tethered to it.
In the photographic darkroom, I set my sight towards the discarded, attempt to empty the mind and assemble the image from rubbish. Here, the breath becomes the valve that offers a different way of seeing. This way, the paper contains an act of surrender, mirroring a moment of complete presence.
Left: Untitled ('21) - digital image
All photograms are unique, sized 22x29cm and printed on Hahnemühle Art 300 paper.
