STATION is delighted to present Kate Bohunnis’ second solo exhibition with the gallery, Dopamine, a meditation of the complicated relationship between pleasure and pain.

Bohunnis’ practice is conceptually rigorous and technically resolved, with an inventive approach to materials and a focus on gender, identity and queer methodologies. For this exhibition, Bohunnis has turned their attention to the complexities and trappings of pleasure, from both a personal and neuroscientific standpoint. Drawing on their personal history of opioid addiction, Bohunnis delves into the complexities of seeking pleasure safely in a society where dopamine has become a form of currency, and indulgence and abundance are both prioritised and politicised.

The human experience is intricately woven with pleasure and pain, which operate through an opponent process mechanism in the brain: an experience of one automatically triggers the other. However, in its quest to maintain equilibrium, the brain often overcompensates, releasing twice as much of its opposing force. Thus, in the pursuit of pleasure, we unknowingly amplify pain; in our attempts to mask pain, we eventually diminish our ability to endure it.

In form, Bohunnis’ work often leans toward the abject as a way of negotiating bodily and political identities. Bohunnis’ new series of greyscale prints and digital collages depict imagined and abstracted networks that represent the channels, synapses, glands and energy sites where these intricate chemical processes take place. In the centre of the gallery space, an installation of sculptural forms with sodden and slumped marble and silicone extrusions takes centre stage – a tangible reminder of the fragile equilibrium required to achieve true balance.