Pallet Bones

This series of 5 carved sculptures made from reclaimed pallet wood depicts enlarged human bones. Sacrum Profanum (2019, 72 cm x 55 cm x 27 cm sans base) depicts the sacrum (tip of the pelvis), Les Os de palette (2019, 62 cm x 24 cm x 78 cm each) depict the shoulder blades (right and left scapulas), and Palette-Palatin (2018, 35 x 28 x 41 cm each) depict the right and left palatine bones. The works are hand-carved, covered in a white tung oil patina finish, and displayed on custom welded stands.

Shipping pallets and Palate Bones

Each of these specific bones have an etymological or homophonal relationship to shipping pallets. The “palate” is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals – the palatine bones are located in the hard palate – The “omoplate” / shoulder blade is a flat bone whose latin name, scapula, is derived from the word for a small shovel which it is thought to resemble – and the sacrum is the only bone in the human body that moves (during childbirth!). A “pallet” is either a bed (now rare) or a flat platform onto which goods are loaded.

The two paired sculptures are more or less mirror images of each-other. The tip of the pelvis stands on its’ own, symmetrical in its’ own right. To produce them, I first watched countless hours of youtube anatomy videos for medical students and made sketches from actual human bones. Afterwards, I glued together wooden planks from disassembled pallets and then sculpted the anatomical forms using wood chisels. The sacrum is displayed aloft and upside-down, with its’ tip hovering over the viewer who gains the perspective of a baby as it emerges from the womb.

The work is at once highly specific and nevertheless difficult to identify without specialized knowledge or experience. The form of the sculptures is highly realistic; a doctor familiar with the specific bones would probably be able to recognize them, while most audiences can appreciate the works as abstract forms that evokes “bones” in some way. By producing oversized human bones from shipping pallets, I evoke the complex relationships between singular, individual human bodies and the commodity-based supply chains of global trade.

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