Surrogate Violence

Surrogate Violence is a series of explorations that address illogical retribution enacted against a secondary party. Abraham's willing promise to slaughter Isaac, Lot's daughter offered to appease a hysterical mob, Mary's circumstantial atonement for Eve's errors-- all laudatory examples of ritual (or perfunctory) sacrifice.

On an individual level, Surrogate Violence incorporates a punishment of the body for crimes committed by the mind or spirit, and conversely the punishment of the spirit-- through the conceivable possibility of hell-- for crimes committed by the body.

The body is the site and instrument of expectation and punishment, even where the body is not touched directly; the body is the physical space through which intangible motivations, desires, considerations, and infractions are mediated and controlled. The works in this series incorporate bones and animal remnants, referring both to the temporal nature of physicality and to the presence (or absence) of the body in punishment and its negotiation.

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