Ever After was inspired by my neighbor who was murdered by her partner at home. Having been grappling with war casualties in recent work, researching American monuments and memorials - specifically who we memorialize and how we materialize those monuments as signifiers of our collective values and identity - I was struck by the staggering statistics of domestic violence in our own country. In this work I repeatedly count to 1606, the number of US women murdered by men they knew in 2016, the same year as my neighbor. The materials used are common household items, and the scale of each piece is small, un-monumental, in order to situate it in an intimate domestic space. The repetitive nature of the work speaks to the futility of any piece to adequately memorialize all that has been lost.
materials: velum, graph paper, cotton paper, unraveled fabric, used books, broom, twine, rope, thread, graphite, map pins, ink, nail polish, pine needles, plaster, linen, wood, gouache, dressmaker pins
All images taken by Dana Rogers of a two-person exhibition with Colleen Merrill titled Tending Edges at the Living Arts and Science Center, Lexington, KY, 2019.
