Meraud Pengelly

‘LIMINAL SKINS’ explores the thresholds of a transitory, in-between state where the natural collides with the manufactured. Through contrasting materials of felted sheep’s wool and sculpturally fluorescent acrylic forms, the work explores tensions of soft and hard forms, organic matter and industrial construction. These opposing surfaces create an uncanny subverted sense of dominance and containment, forming speculative bodies that exist between garment, object, and armour. The acrylic structures evoke systems of surveillance and display, derived from animal observatory boxes. Forming transparent ‘Foucauldian’ panopticon enclosures that suggest both protection and control. Being watched within an acrylic box mirrors the experience of digital observation: the body becomes the observed animal, conscious of its own visibility. The human relates to the contained creature through this shared condition of surveillance, where both exist in resistant awareness of being seen. Within this ambiguous but controlled space, the biological and artificial no longer operate as opposites, but as interconnected layers within the same evolving form. The work crosses boundaries between body and structure, vulnerability and resistance, containment and autonomy. The body becomes liminal, suspended between human, animal, and constructed object.