Definition: 

– The quality or state of being such: essential or characteristic quality

–  Buddhism: nameless and characterless reality in its ultimate nature (tathata) 

The blurred line between sign and symbol finds its greatest clarity in the examination of the object and the narrative it subsumes. How it comes into being, the why of its existence, the temporality of its placeholder in our Universe of “things” are the SUCHNESS of the object. Much as we apply neurological tools to identify people in our surrounds, the identifiers within the object offer a complex answer to “What is the there in the there?”  For the artist, it happens in my studio practice when the unknown makes itself known. For the beholder, it happens when the object acts as a catalyzer of the subterranean existence of the ”me” to be unearthed. Perception, memory, social constructs, emotions, histories, and presence are the tools for this excavation, prompted by the singular object.