Emrys Thurgood
The Stars that Forgot the Sky
Emrys Thurgood is an artist who emphasises storytelling and the unreal to explore intangible experiences. Through the creation of uncanny characters and spaces for them to inhabit, they depict themes such as mental health and gender-queerness in a playful manner. They often play with physical fabrication and digital manipulation to further imbue their work with a dissociative lens.
‘The Stars That Forgot the Sky’ follows a boy and his two imaginary, star-headed friends through a world of the boy’s imagination. This project explores the experiences of derealisation and genderqueerness, considering how they overlap to create a world where mind and body become unreal.
The boy lives inside an empty, white-walled house, that isolates its inhabitants. It is both entrapping and freeing, depicting the struggles and comforts of derealisation. Though isolating, its detachment from reality offers the boy a safe environment for play in which he can accept his unreality.
Through the window, all that can be seen are the stars. These become the boy’s only companions. Though stars physically exist, they cannot be touched, making a relationship with them an intangible one. The stars’ existences are isolated, but this does not concern them. Within this story, they exist as metaphors for derealisation and the numbness that comes with it. Despite this, they offer comfort to the boy through their consistent presence amidst the emptiness of this world.
Outside the house it is always night, imbuing the land with a dream-like quality. In the house, the stars are confined. In the woods, they have room to glow. They lack a tangible presence, making them emblematic of an alternative, euphoric world. A genderqueer utopia grows within this intentionally ambiguous landscape. Under the cover of night, the boy can become one with the stars that he adores.
Find more of Emrys’ work below: