Tower Room Exhibition

Working across a range of media, Cuban-American artist Anthony Goicolea is concerned with issues of the body, beauty, chaos and the perverse.

In Goicolea’s video Nail Biter (2002), a young boy sits in bed in a darkened cabin in the middle of the woods, nervously biting his nails. As he chews, they continue to grow at an abnormal rate. His repetitive motions are compulsive, exaggerated as the pace quickens and hundreds of nail shards accumulate around him.

The boy’s frenetic actions are accompanied by a soundtrack comprised of an amplified heartbeat, owls and other woodland noises which combine to mimic the effect of a metronome. As the video progresses the tension mounts, and a seemingly everyday, nervous habit unfolds into a sinister portrait.