existential
dreadlings
The Existential Dreadlings originated as sculptural companions, created during a period of personal turmoil and continued to evolve amid ongoing global upheaval. After my residency at the Berlin Art Institute, where I studied how Dadaists & Surrealists utilized automatism, asemic language, and the esotericism the women artists of this era brought to art, I found the permission to weave grief and loss into my practice in ways that were absurd, darkly humorous, without watering down the essential themes in our collective rage and coping.
the SCULPTURES
As a series of sculptures, the Existential Dreadlings became I’m Fine, It’s Fine…Art, a gallery installation that gave those fractures a body, a voice, and a stage where collective coping could be seen for what it really is: messy, absurd, and oddly comforting. They became reflections of the collapse of community, the erosion of connection, and the uneasy truth that mental health is everyone’s unspoken burden.
THE ADORNMENT
As the Existential Dreadling universe expanded, the sculptures slipped off their plinths and into Existential Adornment, a fine jewellery collection crafted in sterling silver, gold, diamonds, sapphires and pearls. Each piece captures the sculptures’ narratives into intimate, wearable relics.
The result: strange companions for the beautifully disenfranchised; questionable luxuries for those spiralling in style. Crafted somewhere between refined and unravelling.
the line up
the line up
THE DECK
Through this process, multiple iterations of zines were created as accessible art moments that documented their development and provided people with insight into the project during the chaos of production. Those zines ultimately evolved into The Dreadling Deck: each Dreadling comes with its own card, while the whole deck (plus archetype cards) can be used as an oracle or daily pull. Not to summon answers, but to remind you that someone has your back—even if that someone is exhausted, sarcastic, and giving you side-eye while doing it.
The Story CONTINUES…
A new project has just been greenlit: Strange Companions: Existential Dreadlings as Porcelain Sculptures—a return to the altar, where fragility and permanence collide, and the guardians evolve yet again.