Artist Statement
Pieces of Us is a series of plaster and cement sculptures that depict fossils imprinted with human activity. Each piece has an impression of an action that can be considered a universal human behavior, or a behavior that has been observed in every human culture across time and distance. My goal is to create a fossil record of human activity that is impossible, or near-impossible to preserve.
Specifically, I want to show activities that humanize people of the past, such as styling hair or sharing food. When we think of our ancient ancestors, it is often scientifically or through the lens of unflattering narratives. I want to show them as they were, capable and compassionate. For instance, one of the pieces records the sharing of food, an action that combines both cooking and gift giving. I chose to represent these actions through fossils because they are instantly recognized as gateways to the past. For materials, I used plaster and cement because they can be manipulated to look like stone fossils, and I used my own body to make the impressions. My hope is that this series is able to help us connect to people of the past through actions that have been repeated through all of human history.
