Installation Detail from 701 Center for Contemporary Art. Six altered couches stacked, ratchet straps, one couch cushion, acrylic & latex paint, 2018.
AFFECT-ED, BEING is a contemporary approach to portraiture enacted through a series of installation-based, paintings, sculptures, and video-performance works. Four imaginary personae, Donna, Tim, Roeshell, & Kami's being emerge in these works through techniques such as narrative and hyperbole while hinging on Watkins' embodiment of the subject. Emotional tendencies such as insecurity, dependence, and compulsion are employed in the improvisational performance process as well as the final installation. The domestic space (home), serves as a metaphor for the mind and a gateway to the internal experience while elements of the found and altered objects are personified to underscore the individual’s social status alongside cognitive function. A cycle of obsessive-compulsive behaviors and subconscious-coping mechanisms are revealed in these portraits of the individual, as the human psyche simultaneously forms and upends what we know of as the person (personality).