Remember Lot's Wife... , 1997

Salina Art Center, Salina, KS

This work is a critique on the construction of women’s roles in western patriarchal culture, particularly biblical figures who are portrayed as selfish, worldly, or evil, such as Eve, Mary Magdalene, or Lot’s Wife, for whom the very act of looking back invoked the punishment of death. The central element of this site-specific installation is the grouping of two enlarged photographic images of the front and back of a woman pushed against a piece of glass. Although the figure is collapsed, she is empowered by her monumental scale and by controlling the entrance to the building. Here, viewers were invited to question their own access and privilege. Salt is used as a reference to the geological past of Salina, and as the landscape from which Lot’s Wife emerges in a moment of courage, or, into which she disappears in a moment of doubt.

Check out the review in Sculpture Magazine and the Chicago Reader.

Multiple media: two photographs printed onto translucent photo paper (duratrans), hand-made glass tears, 2,500 lbs. of rock salt, wood, soundtrack.

Dimensions: 9 H x 12 W x 5 D FT.

Photo credit: Jim Nedresky


Raw Space Gallery, Artists Residents Of Chicago (ARC), Chicago, IL

 

Willard Hall Art Gallery, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS