When Monuments Fall is a selection of paintings and sculptures that interrogate the precarious position of monumentality. This body of work contests the ideological and the symbolic manifestations of colonialism and intersects with current international conversations around the recontextualization, revision, and removal of monuments.
In these large-scale watercolor paintings, monuments are in transition, broken or veiled. At their core, these paintings question how monuments participate in the construction and narratives of state power and supplant lived memories and histories. The work problematizes the inability of the heroic monument to move beyond reinforcing dominant powers. While the current undoing and the removal of these monuments mark an important shift in our understanding of oppression and nationhood, this reckoning does not undo the figures’ legacies of violence.
The ceramic sculptures reimagine municipal and royal stamps, incorporating teeth, hair and a humbler as a way to reintroduce the personal into a space that was once meant to obscure individual bodies. These seal matrices interrupt the symbolic with the corporeal, reminding us of a very real absence in the historic record.
The Hand of The King, 2021, 40 x 40 inches, watercolor on paper
Forgetful Long Goodbyes, 2021, 40 x 40 inches, watercolor on paper
Late Stage Love Affairs, 2021, 40 x 40 inches, watercolor on paper
I Told You Once, 2021, 7.25 x 5.125 x 4.5 inches, ceramic and wax
‘Member Me, 2021, 2.5 x 3.75 x 5.75, ceramic and wax
In Case the Wind Will Not Listen, 2021, watercolor on paper, 72 x 108 inches
Canopy, 2021, 60 x 40 inches, watercolor on paper
When Monuments Fall, installation view, 2021
Fuck Around And Find Out (Word Is Bond), 2021, 3.25 x 4 x 4.5 inches, ceramic, hair, wax
I Told You Once, 2021, 7.25 x 5.125 x 4.5 inches, ceramic and wax
‘Member Me, 2021, 2.5 x 3.75 x 5.75, ceramic and wax
Fuck Around And Find Out (Hand to God), 2021, 8.5 x 4 x 4 inches, ceramic and wax
When Monuments Fall, installation view, 2021