October 2021
Welded steel
L 15.3 x W 14.8 x H 12.5 in
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/b0f5e41d-9701-42c5-9517-33f5fc5f66f9/49e53e9b-ed90-4049-9cd9-645f0b559984_rw_3840.jpg?h=52312053adc8b2862ba01eaf7ce8e65d)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/b0f5e41d-9701-42c5-9517-33f5fc5f66f9/b1c25671-4049-4eae-bd47-416595366eb7_rw_3840.jpg?h=6e7fb625111e351347a8cf9f3d99df98)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/b0f5e41d-9701-42c5-9517-33f5fc5f66f9/d82cce01-93b9-49df-80a6-33f1b09a128b_rw_3840.jpg?h=909dba7f94c24624b1f16d8b8b0ee34c)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/b0f5e41d-9701-42c5-9517-33f5fc5f66f9/69a67cb9-5505-4229-8500-239fa6777b48_rw_3840.jpg?h=6ef27f18e1b49642cce5f84a4d468435)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/b0f5e41d-9701-42c5-9517-33f5fc5f66f9/0afce416-5595-45ae-834b-7ffbedb14b09_rw_3840.jpg?h=b0d213bb77e3d0557f34c5717585fe9c)
This piece is inspired by a writing / article by Michael Arrigo entitled "A Grotesque Paradise: The Roots of Culture in the Visual Ontology of Chaos". Arrigo recounts a story from the Chuang-Tzu, a traditional Taoist text, which tells of a benevolent but grotesque creature from Chinese tradition called Hun-tun. As the story goes, there were two emperors who were treated kindly by Hun-tun, and therefore decided to repay him by boring him the seven openings which man uses to eat, breathe, and see. They gave him one hole per day, but Hun-tun, being a creature of primordial chaos and not a man, died on the seventh day. My piece has six holes and represents Hun-tun's transformation from a faceless, lumpy, grotesque being into something more recognizable to us humans, who inhabit a world of order. The conceptual and material attributes of the steel, which is hard, impermeable, and man-made, lent themselves to this particular depiction of the events described in the text. The sculpture is symmetrical and zoomorphic, representing the penultimate day of the well-intentioned yet ill-fated endeavor to bestow order upon Hun-tun.