A Statement on my Goddess sculptures

Contemporary Lady of Se, based on an archaeological artifact dating to c.5000 BCE, Hungary (Marina Gimbutas’ The Language of the Goddess, p. 34)

These ancient forms are not fetishized mindless idol worship or kitsch but rather a thoughtful memory of something that was repressed—feminine and earth-centered values. There have been many attempts to destroy any evidence of this female-centered/Mother Earth-centered/nature-centered world from the pre-patriarchal eras. 

My attempt is to bring forward these works, in order to show us the brokenness of history—what was lost when patriarchal domination replaced the female and Mother Earth centered world.

Contemporary Fish Goddess

For me, these goddess figures function as aesthetic negations: they call into question the patriarchal religions and economic systems with too many bought politicians that have reduced the sacred and feminine to commodity and instrument in order to dominate. These contemporary sculptures are based on an archaic semblance, not for consolation but interruption—an insistence that what has been buried still exerts a claim on us.

I am not simply affirming the past, but critically pointing out what has been lost and devalued.  I exhibit them as a critique of current institutional attempts at modern domination of females and Mother Earth, found in our legal, religious, economic and political structures.  

Bird Goddess Vessel

These art objects become ciphers—objects that hold the contradictions between 

• Mimesis (the drive to connect with nature in a non-controlling way) and 

• Rational mastery (the modern drive to dominate and control).

These works do not show a reconciliation—they don’t smooth out this tension into something comfortable.

Their truth comes from this unresolved tension which includes 1) a protest against patriarchy and a petrified market that alienates and 2) a memorial, remembering what has been destroyed.