Sarah Hobbs

Issue 132

A desire to construct psychological space has always been the driving force behind my work. It is an exercise in topoanalysis – the psychological study of the sites of our intimate lives. I examine how our surroundings swirl together with our psyches and couple with the state of our current society to create our psychological outlook. Installations are created in domestic or other private spaces, each representing a thought process or a subconscious drive. Everyday or readily available objects serve as psychological signifiers. Singly, these materials are mundane, but collected and arranged to excess, they take on a heavier meaning. 

These images represent the behavioral residue of anxious energy and flights of thought, physically carried out to the extreme. The idea of turning away from reality and doing something rash or impetuous, simply as a release or as a way of feeling one has control over something, some act of creation or destruction, acts as a psychological panacea.

The spaces we create for ourselves can either assuage or exacerbate our inner and outer conflicts. For many years, I have been creating large-scale photographs as well as site-specific installations from these ideas. It seems all the more important now, with the general psychological and sociological state of our world today.

Sarah Hobbs lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia.
To view more of Sarah’s work, please visit her website.