There is a Gorilla on Mars takes as its starting point a widely circulated image from NASA’s Spirit rover in which a small rock formation was read as the figure of a gorilla. The image became convincing precisely through its poor quality: magnification, compression and distance stripped the object of definition, allowing perception to fill in what the image could no longer clearly describe.

The work extends this logic through found digital images, isolating and enlarging fragments until their original subjects become unstable or abstract. These fragments are then translated back into drawings and sculptures, moving from object to image and back to object again. Rather than reconstructing a lost original, the process produces a new one: a physical form generated through error, projection and misrecognition. The work approaches looking as an almost forensic act — searching images for clues, building narratives from incomplete evidence, and testing the point at which perception slips between recognition and invention.