Re-Pose

A bust of the Farnese Hercules deconstructed in zero gravity.

24 x 30in Hand-cut stencil, projected with a phone torch onto a wall at an old barracks. Ballyquin Beach, Ardmore 2023

This series of shattered busts began after having noticed some stencil artists adopting this sort of spider web technique for the portraits. They would add all these extra lines between the shading to hold the face together after everything is cut out. Figuring that these lines in-between could be comparable to cracks in ceramic, I began to experiment with breaking apart busts of historical figures to introduce a context to the lines that hold the portraits together, ironically by breaking them apart. 

The way the statues are composed, the source of light is intended to be the cause the rupture and is always pointing at the breaking point of the object. In an attempt to introduce actual light to the presentation, the stencil was sealed between two sheets of custom cut glass and mounted into a refurbished frame to create a solid object, that when light shun through, it would project the stencil on to a wall.