SENSELESS SERIES
Artists have never taken a quiet stance on issues that affect our lives. We raise our individual and collective voices in outrage to encourage healing and progress. In my “Senseless” series, I directly confront the lamentable ubiquity of gun violence.
I was forever changed when 22-year old Christiana Duarte, daughter of a close friend, was gunned down in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting. Christiana’s death caused a devastating rift in my life. Gun violence had forever altered the lives of people dear to me. I no longer felt as if I cold be a passive witness to its havoc.
“Senseless" directly confronts the insanity of gun violence. Taking cues from the traditions of weaving that incorporate vivid symbolism and direct narrative, “Senseless” incorporates AR-15 bullet shell casings accumulated from a shooting range, alongside copper wires that protrude and twist from their woven backdrop. The integration of these materials creates a visceral narrative, much like the Navajos symbolically fused their stories into textiles. The shell casings are vivid reminders of the ubiquity and confounding accessibility of guns. The copper wires that twist around them leave circular forms that are emblematic of their source material repurposed and reconfigured in gestures that reach toward resolve.
- Subject Matter: abstract
- Created: 2019