Ocean Dobree
London, UKocean.dobree@gmail.com
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Paint, material, light, sound and body become vessels for a kind of storytelling that offer the viewer a proposition to re-orientate themselves within their surroundings. In this process of remapping space Ocean driects the vieiwer into a dreamlike state of connection where we can endulge ourselves in alternative visions of the past, present and future. Their work composes and examines ideas surrounding post-humanism, post-anthropocentricism and queer ecology, whereby performance, as defined by queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz becomes a “warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality”, “ the not here or there” that conjures a kind of utopian dreaming.
Ocean’s recent performance works have explored how the body can be used as a gesture for queer struggle and resistance. First in their performance ‘Rhip’, using hair as a mark making medium to remap and queer space, and secondly in their most recent work ‘CATHARSIS’, a sound and body based performance incorporating archival audio and site based sonic experiments that draw alliance with past and present expressions of trans and outsider identity. CATHARSIS displays a body at odds with its surroundings, battling to find belonging and hold strong, sound and movement are used as exhalations of the body to allow one to ultimately find release through a process of catharsis.
As part of their Bachelors Degree at Glasgow School of Art, Ocean recieved a First Class Honours Degree and was awarded the Alice Duncan Prize for their work and commitemmnt to a thought provoking and radical practice. This was followed by winning the Salt Space Graduate award and residency. You can view thier degree showcase here.