Torso Relics
In this series, bright tee-shirts are dipped in dirty acrylic brushwater and dragged into the shape of famous sculptural fragments. Literal “wet-draperies” these Torso Relics attempt to contend with the place of ancient Greece and Rome in the American imaginary.
Appearing as polychrome ruins, these Torsos look to ancient Greek and Roman marble or bronze fragments as critical cultural materials. From Federalist architecture to the development of “mannequin” modeling in the 1800s, popular perceptions of the “Classical” have shaped contemporary life in the United States and beyond. Yet, the basis of these perceptions are often incomplete, fragmentary bodies. Ruins can be perceived as picturesque, but they are also naturally violent. Ruins are representatives of destruction and loss. Discarded archeological torsos call to mind real bodily fragmentation that is so popularly revered–– from the rash of American torso killers and concurrent documentaries, podcasts and news stories to war photography and stories of rape, explosions, and machinegun fire.
