Cameron Maldonado

“Phantasm Asylum” incorporates performance, photography, and three-dimensional mixed media to transform internal headspaces into tangible “horrorscapes” – formally in conversation with the visual language of the horror genre. Phantasm Asylum centers three fabricated rooms – one resembling a bathroom, one that can be most closely identified as a D.I.Y. laboratory, and one that brings the outside in, depicting a space overgrown with fungus and rot. The spaces mimic places within and outside of the home, gesturing to the tension of the domestic as both a reflection and appropriation of the self. Phantasm Asylum addresses a recurring theme within my artistic practice: the tension between performance and identity, specifically the performance of sanity and heteronormativity. The spaces created erect the metapsychical walls of a psyche collapsing in on itself.

Cameron Maldonado (b. 2000, Southern California) explores the tension between performance and identity, with a focus on mental illness and sexuality, through multi-media sculpture and photography. Their work features elements of camp, absurdity, and constructed reality.