This work belongs to a series titled Karmic Mirror, and it is a mediation on ideas of desire in Buddhism and the psychoanalytic theory of French philosopher Jacques Lacan’s theory of desire, which objet petit a is central. It is an expression of the lack inherent in human beings, whose haplessness produce a quest for the fulfilment beyond the satisfaction of biological needs. It is a fantasy that functions as the cause of desire; as such, it determines whether desire will be expressed within the limits of the pleasure principle of “beyond”.

The title refers to a mirror in Hell which displays one’s sins and karmic debt prior to judgment. The deliberate score marks on the mirror supposedly frames one’s reflection in a fiery cocoon that invokes a certain confrontation, a metaphor for the loss of Self in pursuing desire. These marks, generated by an angle grinder, carry the language of self-harm in violent process of obscuring the image. For the artist, the accumulation of these permanent gestures, layers of past mistakes and scars is a poetic karmic mirror – it reflects the hellish trap of desire but also of its allure.