"What Remains: Woman, No. 1"

What Remains: Woman, No. 1
Archival paper, pen and glue 11" x 17"
Part of the ongoing series Women as Objects: What Remains
One of a kind, signed and titled. Arrives unframed.

Women as Objects: What Remains
Across centuries and cultures, a woman's body has been dressed as a social contract. Her clothing announced her availability, her marital status, her husband's wealth and lineage. Elaborate lacework, heavy metalwork, layered textiles — worn not as chosen personal expression but as rule-based social coding, legible to any stranger who knew how to read it. Garments that covered the body entirely, restricted movement, or were painful to wear. The woman inside was secondary to the message being broadcast on her behalf.

These were not decorative choices. They were systems — patriarchal frameworks that defined a woman's identity in relation to men, to marriage, to eligibility. You could read her life stage at a glance. You could know, without asking, whether she was a girl not yet given, a wife already claimed, or a widow left behind.

This work is what survived her. Traced from found historical photographs of women from Eastern Europe and Scandinavia — the drawings follow only the clothing, the ornaments, the intricate objects worn on the body. The woman is never drawn. She has disappeared from the frame entirely. What is left are orphaned, hovering structures — objects that once identified her, controlled her, spoke for her — now adrift, belonging to no one.

Each drawing is a new woman. Unidentified. Uncategorized. Now she is free.

*Each piece is an original hand-traced work. Minor variations and imperfections are inherent to the process and part of what makes each one unique.