Humans experience trauma in different ways, whether that encompasses the psychological, emotional, or physical. Trauma leaves an impression in and on the body. This impression binds an emotional experience to a bodily memory on a visceral level. When the body endures trauma, that memory is often repressed, eventually finding a way to the surface. Understanding the memory of trauma provides an opportunity for coping and adapting in the present. The reassessment of residual memories and experiences allows for an evolving sense of perspective.

This body of work examines the impact of trauma on the body and how it may be made physical through fragmented figurative sculptures. To achieve a physical expression of these internal experiences, I focus on ways to elicit body memory. I consider the figures to be expressing memory through their fragmentary form and layered surfaces. My inquiry considers human vulnerability as a way to evoke empathy in the viewer, materiality of the human body as a means for emphasizing connections with others, and surface of the sculptural figure as a marker of time. I create sculptures in a variety of scales to suggest the processing of trauma over a lifetime. Fragmentation is employed by creating headless, armless figures to push memory away from the place we typically position is in the mind and asserts it as experienced through the whole body. Reducing markers of identity in the figures implies anonymity, allowing viewers access into the work as they relate through the body. To implicate the viewer, space and placement is employed to  create individual encounters while suggesting connections with others so that the viewer may consider their own vulnerabilities. Clay’s shape shifting capabilities suggests the materiality of the body and makes physical the transitory nature and memory of experience. The ceramic medium evokes strength and fragility, relating to the resilience and vulnerability of the human condition while the works bring form to the intangibility of memory. The figures summon viewer empathy in order to bring them in touch with the physical and emotional vulnerability of humanity.