CHRYSALIS
Aurele Gould, photographer, and Tamanna Sohal, poet, are friends and recent collaborators exploring intimacy as a fluid, hazy portal for evolution through visual and verbal motifs of water, darkness, mystery, and incubation. CHRYSALIS is a book of photopoetry holding our separate art practices that have been in conversation over the past two-plus years. In CHRYSALIS, we explore the transitional and transformative nature of intimacy, how connection serves as a cure for a culture of detachment and isolation, and the devotion to self and community that is required to walk this mysterious path where all you can see is the next step. By exhibiting at Pamplemousse, we would be bringing our work that wrestles with (in)tangibility into a wet, soft, dimly-lit physical form to represent the necessary emergence that follows chrysalis. Inviting other people into our sequestered world allows us to share the physicality and sensation representative of our book, our friendship, and our artistry.
Tamanna + Aurele
Tamanna –
How does the body serve as a sensory pillar connecting the mundane and the divine? I use poetry to expand moments where everyday and repetitive acts are sites for self-discovery, connection, love, and freedom – where routine becomes ritual. The erotic – a deep source of unrecognized knowledge and power – is my grounding principle as I examine the body’s memories of touch, smell, taste, light, energy, and relationships. The ways our bodies remember are portals to the dark fertile rooms in our psyches where our selves incubate. I use language to pay attention to and to honor the tenderness and potency of our daily lives.
Aurele –
Gould’s current practice seeks to explore the nuance within specific words through photographic motifs of light, reflections, and texture. They consider languages dual meanings: like ‘inversion’ being an outdated term for the word ‘homosexuality’, but a current term for a reversal; or ‘glare’ being light reflection or an intense stare. The multiplicities within words become the basis for constructing a visual narrative from a queer perspective. Aurele Gould is an image maker based in Richmond, VA with a BFA in Photography + Film from Virginia Commonwealth University. They have been honored with the 2020 VMFA Professional Fellowship Award and the Distinguished Photographer Award from Alex Klein of the ICA Philadelphia. Gould has also received a residency at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond in 2021 and is part of an upcoming group show in February 2025, Back Through The Open Window at The Anderson Gallery. Their monozine GLARE (2023) is currently available through Fifth Wheel Press.
