fine art
Bookmaking | Ceramics | Sculpture | Digital
Shelob’s Lair
Medium
Books, wire, mesh, thread, PVA, ink, pastel, fiber
Year
2018
Drawing from The Two Towers, the second book in The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien, I chose to focus on a specific storyline that had haunted me since childhood. Shelob’s Lair, in particular, had left a lasting impression on me, as someone with a deep fear of spiders. The idea that an enormous creature with a multitude of legs could ensnare and incapacitate a character left me with a lot of sleepless nights. In an effort to confront that fear head-on, I challenged myself to bring a massive spider to life through my own creative work. The process was both daunting and rewarding, transforming something that once terrified me into a personal triumph of artistry and resilience.
The creation of this monstrous piece began with acquiring two copies of The Two Towers—one to carefully dismantle for its pages and the other to serve as the foundation of the sculpture. I first constructed a wireframe using mesh, then gradually built up Shelob’s body, layering pages from her chapter to symbolically bring her to life. Her spindly legs were wrapped in thread, which I frayed with a sharp edge to mimic the fine, hair-like texture of a real spider, enhancing her eerie presence.
For the book portion of the sculpture, I stitched the chapter title page to its facing page using an excessive amount of thin white thread, creating an intricate web-like effect that emphasized the chapter’s significance. To heighten the sense of age and abandonment, I crushed pastels into dust, giving the webbing and pages a timeworn, decayed appearance. As a final unsettling touch, a tiny, bound ‘Frodo’ hung helplessly within Shelob’s grasp, trapped in her silken threads.
“where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.”
— Heinrich Heine
Pages of power
Medium
Books, wire, thread, ink, digital
Year
2010
Banning books, suppressing intellectualism, and restricting free speech have long been precursors to horrific violence. With this in mind, I created a body of work aimed to bring some of these atrocities into discussion.
During the Cambodian genocide, the Khmer Rouge targeted anyone with an education, destroying books and executing teachers in an attempt to erase intellectual thought and enforce absolute ideological control. At Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21, a former school turned into a notorious prison, thousands of innocent people were tortured and executed. Victims were photographed as part of the regime’s brutal process, with each individual often assigned a number and documented before their torture. I incorporated these photos with text and quotes describing these atrocities in an effort to remind people how easily it is to be deemed an enemy of the state.
Similarly, the Berlin Wall stood as a physical and ideological barrier, preventing the free exchange of ideas between East and West, with East German authorities censoring literature and imprisoning those caught with banned materials. Utilizing a book about the Berlin Wall, I incorporated elements that reflected the actual structure, such as ‘barbed’ wire fencing and ‘graffiti.’ The two pieces that would appear on either side of the ‘wall’ when displayed are identical except for the Red book that is bound and silenced. In contrast, the other book, which is displayed as open and free with its chaotic, twisted ideas held together by a multitude of threads.
In Rwanda, radio broadcasts and propaganda were weaponized to incite hatred, replacing open discourse with a singular, violent narrative that fueled the 1994 genocide. For this book, I designed a fold-out layout that unfolded into two sides: one highlighting the suffering of the Tutsi people, and the other detailing the atrocities committed by the Hutus. Using bold type choices, news articles and quotes from broadcasts, I set out to show how people can be manipulated to commit horrific acts. Time and again, history has shown that when knowledge is silenced, brutality follows.
