This piece was rage-inspired while listening to an audiobook version of Aristotle's Poetics.

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There's a bit of a throwaway line in chapter 15, where Aristotle calls on playwrights to create ‘believable’ characters that think, feel, and act in ways that will be plausible to an audience. He takes care to note that even a woman or a slave can be used to good effect, albeit through lesser versions of meaningful themes.

That insidious ‘even’ got me. The casualness of it is gutting. It exposes a shameful inability of some to recognize the full humanity of the other, and that blatantly wrong assessment of women ("inferior beings") and slaves ("worthless") been baked into a classical education for centuries.

That shared fault has been upheld, reflected, and reinforced again and again, guiding thought, power dynamics, and representation for generations.

So I made this. Fourteen sculptures embody the kind of theme or emotion strong enough to hold a narrative, to define a life.

Shaped by a woman, descended from slaves. 

even a woman or a slave
14 gestural sculptures in stoneware and fir.
2024.

​pictured above: isolation
left: jealousy