pia watson
killer eyes


Killer Eyes, 2024
Collaborators: David Cotterrell
Two-channel video installation
Presented at Breath!, The Farm and Distillery Space for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany, 2024When communication breaks down and triggers become more common than kindness, words begin to fail. The conventions of conversation become traps for repetitive recriminations and looping accusations.

Small involuntary “tells” remain as traces of genuine moments of empathy, kindness, and connection obscured by rhetoric. Subtle physical cues offer glimpses of the emotions suppressed beneath measured argument.

The mouth is the deliverer of ideas, but the eyes are what we seek to watch. At some point we can no longer bear to look. Scared to witness genuine disdain, hubris, or anger, we may no longer have the courage to discover whether they still reveal love.

Killer Eyes is the first piece in an ongoing artistic research collaboration between David Cotterrell and Pia Watson, exploring what might reveal where connections falter in situations where communication is necessary to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes between individuals or groups.






Killer Eyes, 2025. Production stills, in collaboration with artist David Cotterrell








© Pia Watson