Installation View, Ripe Spoils, Hunter MFA 2023
Digestive Pile
Installation View, Ripe Spoils, Hunter MFA 2023
Installation view with Tether Woulds and Inner World
Inner World
Public Eye, Private Nose
To Mend a Speculative Origin
Root Rinse
Condensation: when the stomach holds the head
Placenta Recognition
Altar for Entrances and Exits
Ripe Spoils
Hunter MFA Thesis
December 7th, 2023 - January 8th, 2024
checklist
Ripe Spoils is a body of work taking citrus fruit as stand-ins for our bodies. Real and slip cast fruit, peels, paper pulp scaffolds, and forms repaired with wax reconstitute a world in which states of growth, decay, regeneration, draw new pathways. I took my research on how we process sound and smell, to create sculptures that engage a sense of what is interior, exterior, what’s in me, and in another.
I chose key materials- citrus fruits, a skull model, clay, wax, paper, wood, and plant fragments, to explore the bodily experience. Our body is a series of problems dispersed in space: gravity, digestion, regeneration, stressors, and meaning-making. Fruits traverse national boundaries more effortlessly than people, who navigate social, emotional, and political trials. I collected nearly a hundred citrus fruits past their prime, to observe their changes in appearance, scent, and weight. A sour scent can be alluring and repulsive. In Jenny Zhang’s book “Sour Heart”, sourness signifies a complex bond between immigrant children and parents. In Chinese, 酸 (SUĀN) also means to ache. My work “Altar for Entrances and Exits'' accentuates passage between the thresholds. Placed above the gallery entrance, these fruits are only visible from underneath. This sacred space within a commercial setting is inspired by the altars in Chinese, Malaysian, and Thai restaurants.