The Sculpture Yabba

This sculpture was in response to a class assignment in my freshman year of college. The project aimed to create a non-representative self-portrait, meaning the sculpture had to signify the artist without being an exact replica of them.

I decided to use knickknacks I had collected since childhood and let them "tell me" what they wanted to become, allowing the origins of these objects to represent me. I built the structure of The Sculpture Yabba with wire and styrofoam and added papier-mâché to build up the form, leaving a hole in the middle of the stomach to allow drying time. I then kept the hole as a grip purchase to maneuver the sculpture as I fine-tuned it and then left it because I grew familiar with it.

The next part of my construction will probably lead to the decomposition of this piece because I added oil paint on top of the papier-mâché and clay, which will degrade these materials with time. I then added acrylic paint atop the oil (which you're not supposed to do but I did anyway because I was angry at this piece and was rooting for its downfall).

I smashed glass and rocks that I'd collected over time to decorate the face, hands, and torso of The Sculpture Yabba, methodically jammed needles into its mouth and head, and called it finished.

It was only after the critique of this piece that I was able to understand the reasons behind the decisions I made in making it: this piece represented me, which I used my possessions from childhood to mutilate and pigments that would corrode it through time; the hair was irregular through the scalp and the flesh-fishnet texture created by the papier-mâché reflected the self-loathing of my skin and my experience with having a skin disease; the center hole, embedded with shards, paralleled the God-shaped hole in me; The Sculpture Yabba was reaching for my emotional and physical decay as it putrified within itself.