Yellow (Beta)

This sculpture is a sneak peek of my series Cycles of Fire, an exploration in cast bronze of trauma, mental disorders, and healing. Each figure from this series is a personification of a specific experience I have faced in relation to my neurodivergence and the domestic abuse I survived as a child. Creating this sculpture series was a practice both in self-validation and catharsis. The time I spent on each piece gave me the space I needed to experience each emotion without judgment, and at the end of the sculpting process I was left with a physical receptacle into which I could let the emotion go. It is my hope that anyone enjoying my sculptures can project their own experiences into these works and find the same catharsis, healing, and sense of empathy.

This piece is the beta version of my sculpture Yellow, which is a manifestation of shear, deliriously unfettered stress and panic attacks. This sculpture was the first piece that I originally completed for my Cycles of Fire series, but the origin of this image goes back much further. When I was half-way through high school, my home environment became toxic and dangerous, not for the first time. A few months before the unhealthy situation came to a head, I found myself feeling so stressed and trapped that it was physically tangible in my whole body. I do not usually produce powerful art through improvisation–I often spend months refining my ideas–but my stress was so great that it spilled out all over the page of my sketchbook. That drawing was the first version of my Yellow figure, and I felt so empowered by the catharsis it granted me that I soon painted the same image on canvas as the first piece in my high school AP art portfolio. After a few more years, during which time I let the concept percolate while learning how to cast bronze in college, I decided to try my Yellow figure again, this time as a sculpture. That sculpture was the exact same one listed here, and that was the birth of my Cycles of Fire series.