I was selected to be the feature artist at the Brewster Cultural Center's April, 2020 group artist's show at the Brewster Ladies Library. Due to the corona virus that show has been cancelled. Below is a slide show of the series of 5 reliefs I had planned to put in the show, preceded by photos of the work in progress.
" Split personalities" alludes to the fluid nature of sexuality in 21st century America. The idea for the series began with an earlier relief of two or 4 women mirrored in a ladies room. I was intrigued by the face(s) on the left, comprising a profile merged with a half frontal face.
I did a couple of drawings and started the first relief, a paper/clay tablet of two stylized faces, one masculine and one feminine that began as split profile/frontal faces. I cast over the clay with my liquid plaster-paper, resulting in Relief #1.
I then took the clay tablet and cut both faces down the middle and transposed them to make half male, half female heads, resulting in Relief #2.
I then cut each of the half faces into four paper'/clay pieces and rearranged them, resulting in Relief #3.
I then cut each of the 12 paper/clay pieces into four, resulting in 48 pieces which rearranged themselves into Relief #4.
Finally, the 48 pieces shifted so that'd the male and female heads were transposed, resulting in Relief #5.
Understandably, there was a certain amount of degradation involved.
As I worked on this series, I wondered how successful medical science is in making these transpositions.