Title: Gates of Hellebore
Media:stoneware, porcelain, steel, wire
Dimensions: 26" X 11" X 11"
Date: 2024
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“The Gates of Hellebore” draws inspiration from Auguste Rodin’s “Gates of Hell” and Dante Alighieri’s literary work from the 13th century the Divine Comedy. This connection to the concept of the Gates of Hell serves as a metaphor for where we have found ourselves in our current cultural and ecological times. We are at the edge of a moment that has the potential to be disastrous. Not only are we at the brink of what scientists are calling the 6th mass extinction, but our advances in technology have the potential to wreak untenable chaos. We are losing our grip on a commonly shared reality. We are in an eco-chamber of our own thoughts with AI and social media which we do not fully understand the lasting impact and trajectory of. The work questions our ability to see truth and identify what is real. The referenced flower, Hellebore, is not a realistic representation of this flower as the interior has an alluring rainbow of color and the leaves are porcelain bones. It reflects my own dualistic thoughts of both fascination and fear, love and strife, life and death. The figure in the “thinker pose” ponders the meaning of the text. “Love moved me”, and “All hope abandon ye who enter here” as well as the Chat GPT conversation about non-existent references to the hellebore flower in Dante’s book.
