The Forest, 2022

The Forest was a solo installation at Spring/Break Los Angeles, 2022, with Track 16 Gallery.

The Forest started with the Greek myth of Daphne and Apollo. In brief, Daphne is a beautiful maiden who lives in the forest. She has several suitors, but prefers to remain free, untethered by marriage and obligations. Apollo, the god of the sun, falls in love with Daphne and pursues her. She rejects him and flees. But he is a god and eventually he overtakes he, snatching her up and pulling her close. Daphne resists, and cries out, asking to be made into a tree rather than relinquish her freedom. And so she transforms. The myth ends there for Daphne, but I am interested in her future, not that of the god. The tree she becomes lives on, and becomes a forest, a greater being than she was as a single tree or a single woman.

The titular sculpture is a wall based piece, 250 plus individual aspects of the forest: leaves, branches, root children, Daphne’s hands, daphne flowers, and a flock of starlings.

The bust of Daphne has her crowned in daphne flowers, a mirroring of Apollo’s crown of light. Syrinx is next to her, a nymph who transformed into reeds to escape Pan.

The Grove is an upturned head acting as a vase, filled with white branches. The aftermath of forest fires.