Old Galveston Cemetery Statuary Portraiture

Galveston is a barrier island about 40 miles long and about 40 miles south of Houston, Texas. The Old Galveston cemetery was established there in the 1860s. Prior to the great hurricane of 1900, Galveston had the busiest port in the US. Most of the statuary in this series were imported from Italy in the latter 1800s and reflect the affluence of the period, for some. A century of weathering in the hot, humid climate has graced them with a unique patina that has only enriched their melancholic beauty. For this project, I utilized angle of natural light, erasure, and abstraction to deconstruct the original artwork in a way that emphasized the juxtaposition of sublime expressions and a sense of contagion and decay that reminds me of the current moment.