self portrait, sans flesh, Fall 2016

 

self portrait, sans flesh, September 2016

Steel, copper wire, latex paint, wood

This piece is meant to be a figurative self portrait of my past. I was born with spina bifida, and in 1996, the odds of me being able to walk were almost one in a million. Later on in life, my twin brother Riggs would go on to build wheelchairs for children born with the same disability I was supposed to have. I chose to weld the entire thing based on the idea that metal is essentially the backbone of the earth, making this piece both extremely personal to me and ambiguous in the way people could receive it.