THE BLACK CROWN OF RECURRING LOSS

2019, bronze, 44” x 45” x 33” 

Located at the corner of Ingersoll Ave. and 42nd Street, Des Moines, IA

Several years ago I fell in love with a tiny Bronze Age sculpture of a two-headed stag in the Menil Collection in Houston. It was a beautifully designed and mysterious object that I couldn’t stop thinking about. I often use deer as symbols of innocence and love in my work, and I was excited to reinterpret the form for a public art commission by The Avenues.

Love is always shadowed by the fear of change and loss, so on one side, a stag throws its head back in distress while its dead conjoined twin, ears slack, becomes a weight it cannot escape.