I use textiles to evoke the human body as well as unseen labor in industrial and domestic contexts, highlighting interactions between value and waste, power and protest.
This was the first sculpture in the Flotation Devices Series produced since I moved back to the United States after living in France for 16 years. The exterior of this soft sculpture features printed magnified digital images of human skin. A life preserver represents safety, it assists individuals struggling to stay afloat in water. Lifesavers prevent people from drowning at sea; by law, they hang on the walls of public pools and aboard larger boats and ships.
The flotation devices series upends the status quo, imaging bodies and body parts as life saving devices rather than as subjects in need of saving. The series asks viewers “who is drowning in our midst and what can we do to help them?”
This sculpture recreates the standard dimensions of a standard commercial life ring, and integrates standard aluminum hanging hardware. This detail has slowly altered the other pieces in this body of work, as I have began intentionally incorporating welded metal forms into subsequent pieces in this series.
Life Ring, 2024, Soft sculpture with printed vinyl, polyester fiberfill, and twisted nylon/polyester rope, custom aluminum hanging hardware, 28” x 28” x 5.”