Dissolve/Resolve Sculpture

The sculptures that I make are driven by a desire to investigate how an individuals personal history affects their identity, behaviors, and actions. I am especially interested in intergenerational trauma and how a persons past, particularly a past that has been interrupted by a traumatic event such as war, can influence patterned behaviors that are passed through the family. I focus on characters that take their cues from Western ideals of a collective identity. I am utilizing images, patterns and symbols found in specific notions of Western identity and psychology to create my characters, yet I am displaying them in environments that are unfamiliar. The element of fantasy that is thus created shows how the past and the present, dream and reality, conscious and unconscious, familiar and unfamiliar can exist together in an environment that is uncanny, much like the way subconscious memories of a traumatic event can be very much alive in our conscious actions.I am interested in questioning the archetypes role and how the collective identity can be harmful to the family when these roles cease to resonate. What happens when an individuals psyche is altered by a traumatic event and ones ability to fulfill their implied role slowly dissolves? What happens when a wound is so deep and so painful to deal with that one becomes emotionally numb in order to survive? How will this effect a fathers ability to provide, a mothers ability to nurture, and the patterned behaviors that are passed down to their children? What happens when the child resists these patterns?I am exploring characteristics of the Western collective identity by referencing both Social Realist Monuments and Hummel Figurines. The rendering qualities of the Hummel figurine are a visual trigger of a specific language of social idealization of the child/childhood. Their chubby, red cheeks and full bodies, their curious, sweet gestures, doe eyes and sturdy wide stance represent health, happiness and an uncorrupt innocence. The pedestals that they stand on are adorned with green grass, flowers and creatures of the forest that would typically be afraid of people. The Hummel is a symbol of unblemished purity. The Social Realist monument is a symbol that I am using as an emblem of the collective identity in the implied role of the adult.