top of page

Maladaptation Sits

2021

“Maladaptation Sits” continues Watkins’ examination into the relationship between the internal experience and the external, public sphere. This piece was created on site at Laundromat Art Space, in the Little Haiti district of Miami, FL as part of a three-person show entitled “Waiting Room”. Made with an accumulation of discarded household objects scavenged from the streets, majority of these items were collected just blocks from the gallery. The process of seeking out objects of want/need, aligns physically and metaphorically with the psychological state encountered when attempting to cope with circumstance, emotions, and pervasive thoughts. Maladaptation refers to the failed coping mechanism which acts as a thematic thread in Watkins’ work and ongoing research. While reflecting on the concept waiting, not just in daily life, but its grip on contemporary society in recent years, the work presents a human plagued with anxiety to the degree of paralysis. “Maladaptation” personifies underlying neuroses as the individual sits, waiting to face, the chaos of the mind which it is enveloped.

bottom of page