In Everything I Touch (2017), artist Haiiileen transforms the act of touch into a visual language — exploring how energy, memory, and material are intertwined through human contact. This conceptual performance piece examines how every interaction, both physical and emotional, leaves a visible and invisible trace.
Through layers of reflection, paint, light, and movement, Haiiileen translates tactile emotion into a series of performative gestures, turning the body into both a brush and a mirror.
Title: Everything I Touch (2015) – Performance and Mixed Media Study by Haiiileen
- Artist / Creative Director: Haiiileen
- Medium: Performance Art | Mixed Media | Conceptual Photography
- Year: 2015
- 20 ft x 12 ft
- Mix-media, Bass Museum
- Location: Miami, FL
Description
Everything I Touch is a study of energetic residue — how our presence alters the environments we inhabit. Using mirrored surfaces, pigments, and reflective paint, the artist performs an act of transformation, touching, marking, and smearing her surroundings until they become extensions of her body.
The piece was both a performance and a process — a durational act of creation and erasure. As color shifted and layered over light, the installation became a meditative ritual about connection, transference, and rebirth.
“The idea was simple — that energy changes everything it meets. I wanted to see what that looked like in color, texture, and reflection.” — Haiiileen
Conceptual Framework
- Energy Transference: Every touch carries memory and intention.
- Synesthetic Materiality: Color and texture become metaphors for emotional exchange.
- Transformation as Ritual: Repetition of gesture as a meditative process of creation.
- Reflection and Presence: Using mirrored surfaces to observe cause and effect in real time.
Installation Components
- Reflective mirrored panels coated with custom pigment mixtures.
- Hand-applied chemical paints shifting color with body heat and light exposure.
- Performance sequence involving touch, motion, and gradual transformation of the surface.
- Ambient light environment designed to amplify movement and reflection.
- Photographic documentation capturing the evolving imprint of touch.
“At that time in my life, I was obsessed with the concept of imprint — how love, loss, and curiosity all leave marks that never fade. Everything I Touch was a way to document that energy in physical form.”
This performance was one of Haiiileen’s earliest gestures toward living archives — experiences that cannot be repeated, only remembered. It prefigures the material and conceptual themes of her later Prismatic and Aura series, where emotion becomes both medium and message.
Archival Significance
- Marks Haiiileen’s transition from fashion-oriented creation to introspective conceptual performance.
- Serves as an early example of her “energy residue” philosophy — the belief that art captures the unseen effects of presence.
- Demonstrates her evolving experimentation with chemical paint and reflective materials.
- Introduces themes of touch, transformation, and synesthetic embodiment that reappear throughout her later works.
Archival ID: H2017-EVERYTOUCH
“I’ve always believed that touch is the first language — Everything I Touch was about what happens when that language becomes visible.”