The Brick

A meditation on anger and the destruction of the conscious self

Wall-mounted, recycled mirror.
Recycled brick on pedestal.
2025

A mirror on the wall, a brick on a pedestal beside it. The Brick invites the observer to lift it, hold it, feel it grow heavier, and decide what to do next. In that moment of tension, between impulse and restraint, the work reconstructs the anatomy of anger: its pressure, its escalation, its fleeting promise of release.

Drawing from their lived experience with anger shaped by people pleasing, poverty, and the queer experience, the artist reflects on years of suppressed rage and the social codes that silence it. The act of holding the brick becomes an act of recognition, a confrontation with one’s own threshold. Anger here is not performed but examined, seen for what it is before it takes over. When anger takes hold, consciousness narrows. Thought collapses into reaction. The self, once reflective, is replaced by instinct. What is destroyed is not only what surrounds us, but the awareness that once held it all together.

If one throws the brick and shatters the mirror, they also shatter the reflection of themselves; thus, the piece reaches its goal. What begins as an external examination returns inward, a realisation that acting on our anger doesn’t shatter the mirror alone, it also destroys the self. Mastery over anger is not suppression, but awareness before the break, the choice to see clearly before the self disappears.