The Body in Parts

These pieces use literal representation of the body, from isolated body parts to printed representations of human skin on industrial forms, to explore relationships between the part and the whole.

As an immigrant, I have always been interested in the movement of people. With the more recent Flotation Devices (2000-present), I physically recreate plastic, man-made buoyancy aids as soft sculptures sewn out of reclaimed vinyl billboard fabric. The exterior of the artworks feature photographs of human skin printed on vinyl and newer works in this series include welded aluminum armatures. By remaking commercially available forms with bodily textures and surfaces, I anthropomorphize inanimate objects that evoke protection and passage.

Earlier pieces (2006-2019) explore the attraction/repulsion dynamic through sculptures of body parts in ceramics, wood, concrete, resin, textiles, fibers, tape, beef suet, bread, and bronze. Many of these works were influenced by specific contexts; when I moved to Paris in 2006, I was intrigued by the prevalence of used hemp rope at local flea markets and began making sculptures connecting it to casts of bodily extremities. In 2015, I moved to Brest, France, a coastal city with a robust shipping and naval presence and began gluing together abandoned wooden palettes and sculpting them into human bones as a means to reflect on limits and constraints to the mobility of some humans due to their geographic or national origin. Why is it that goods and products can move across borders relatively fluidly, but people face greater restrictions?