Swampman

76 × 76 inches, colored pencil, graphite, and gesso on paper

In Swampman, I explore whether a self can survive being continuously remade. The work fuses two philosophical paradoxes of replacement: the Ship of Theseus (where an object's parts are incrementally swapped over time) and Donald Davidson's Swampman (where an instant molecular replica is created by lightning). My drawing combines these concepts, capturing the loss of the original at opposite speeds.

I pictured this as an inverted or reflexive Capgras delusion: looking in a mirror and believing (or realizing) that the impostor is you. The drawing enacts this phenomenon: As every body part is systematically swapped with its reflection, they double, quadruple, pull apart, and collapse back in on themselves, mirroring the predicted end of the universe. It is the same phase change happening at both the micro and macro scale. Neither human nor celestial body stays put long enough to become definable. Instead, their parts continuously cycle past their own reflections, and in this recursion, they briefly glimpse the forces that are perpetually transforming them.