Daphne
.still

I had a particular idea to make a sculpture of a twisted female torso, graceful but at the same time expressing the distress and pain women must endure. When I was working on Daphne.Still, a classic sculpture in style, I was inspired by the current awareness about sexual harassment.

I have chosen to use classical white Carrara Statuario marble, as its brightness and elegance best transports the trait of immaculate purity.
While working on the sculpture's back, material broke away unpredictably. To my disappointment, an anatomically correct rendering of the upper back wasn't possible anymore. I had to reimagine the sculpture.
I proceeded to cut out a piece of the back with the idea of later replacing it with wood.

I came to welcome the metaphor of fragility and vulnerability. The wood I used is a Sheesham woodblock that I coincidentally found much later in my process. It is a block like those used by Indian women to print patterns onto fabric, a rich metaphor on its own.

After finishing the sculpture, I still was in search of an appropriate title. I visited a doctor one day and her name immediately took my fancy: Daphne. I remembered there was somehow a link to Greek mythology, without knowing the exact details. Reading up on it was goosebump-inducing.

As Greek myth has it, Daphne, a nymph and daughter of a river god, was known for her grace and beauty. One day Apollo, the Greek god of archery, had been mocking Eros, god of love, about his archery skills.
To retaliate, Eros fired a gold arrow into Apollo's heart to make him fall in love with Daphne forever, and a lead arrow into Daphne’s heart, causing her to refuse him. Henceforth Apollo was chasing after Daphne unceasingly. Exhausted, she turned to her father as a last resort, pleading for help to free her from Apollo.
The instant Apollo caught up with Daphne, river god Ladon transformed his daughter Daphne into a laurel tree, thus saving her.

The sculpture, depicting Daphne's escape and metamorphosis into a tree, is a story about sexual harassment and male dominance, dating back more than two thousand years.

The story has not lost any of its relevance today.

daphne
.still

I had a particular idea to make a sculpture of a twisted female torso, graceful but at the same time expressing the distress and pain women must endure. When I was working on Daphne.Still, a classic sculpture in style, I was inspired by the current awareness about sexual harassment.

As Greek myth has it, Daphne, a nymph and daughter of a river god, was known for her grace and beauty. One day Apollo, the Greek god of archery, had been mocking Eros, god of love, about his archery skills. To retaliate, Eros fired a gold arrow into Apollo's heart to make him fall in love with Daphne forever, and a lead arrow into Daphne’s heart, causing her to refuse him.

Henceforth Apollo was chasing after Daphne unceasingly. Exhausted, she turned to her father as a last resort, pleading for help to free her from Apollo. The instant Apollo caught up with Daphne, river god Ladon transformed his daughter Daphne into a laurel tree, thus saving her.

The sculpture, depicting Daphne's escape and metamorphosis into a tree, is a story about sexual harassment and male dominance, dating back more than two thousand years.

The story has not lost any of its relevance today.