Soldered brass, 15 x 9 x 3, 2016.
Fig Leaf Figure puts the leaf where the body should be. The fig leaf is the part of a sculpture that gets added. Genesis gives it as the first garment, and later centuries applied it to antique and Renaissance nudes so they could stay on view. The V&A’s cast of Michelangelo’s David has a plaster leaf made to hang on it for visits by royal ladies. In each case the leaf is small and sits at one point on a body that already exists. Here the body is gone, and the leaf stands in its place on two legs.
The veins fix the anatomy. They fan out from the stem at the bottom of the leaf, so the join with the legs is the pelvis, and the lobes spread above it as hips, waist and shoulders. The leaf has taken over the torso and kept its own structure. The legs are thin, set close together and end in small feet, which gives the figure the proportions of a wading bird: a large body balanced on stilts. The leaf is dished toward the viewer, so the front holds a hollow where a chest would be.
The stepped base is the plinth of an academic statue at tabletop scale. The leaf stands on it as the subject, and the part of the monument that was always applied afterward now occupies the monument’s place.
