Enlightened Trio (After the La Specola Anatomical Venus)
blown glass, wax, eyeshadow, eyelashes,
mixed media 42”h x 26”w x 12”d 2022 |
Wax resembles flesh and harkens to mass-produced votive objects made and offered in hope of healing. Artisanal wax anatomical models were created for medical study, such as those from the 18th century collection La Specola in Florence, Italy. "Specola" translates in English to “observe”, and the
hyper-real anatomical models in their collection were learning tools studied by surgeons and doctors as three-dimensional textbooks. The La Specola Anatomical Venus constellates beauty, eroticism, death, the sublime and the uncanny. “Today, she both intrigues and confounds, troubling our neat categorical divides between life and death, body and soul, effigy and pedagogy, entertainment and education, kitsch and art.” —Joanna Ebenstein, Author of The Anatomical Venus |