Shape of a Lie
2005
bronze, catlinite (native American pipestone)
70 x 29 x 54 inches
edition of 3
The morphology of a lie. The first thing one encounters is the lie escaping through an open mouth and over a harassing tongue (modeled after the artist’s tongue). Behind the wall holding the tongue and mouth are the organs of the lie. There is the initial, fragile toehold in reality. Freudian urges are represented here as swollen gonadic engines. Where these two organs meet, the gut wrenches. It reacts, knotting and clenching into a path of resistance. But the lie makes its way through this queasy constriction and swells. The splinter of reason, a three-dimensional encapsulation of Piranesi’s irrational architecture, spikes into the ballooning lie, attempting to deflate it. It fails, however, to perforate the monstrous proposition.
