FUNERARY IDOL | FUNERARY ICON ™, 2023

SERIES: FUNERARY IDOL | FUNERARY ICON ™ ^
Untitled (Sculpture-001 ™ Pending), 2023, clay, wire, 8 x 5 x 2.5 in.

Outdoor Sculpture (rendering)

Alongside the smaller series, the artist proposes a large-scale “dry fountain” sculpture, in which a snow-globe sphere of ashes circulates through mechanisms that mimic, yet deny, a traditional water fountain. Two dolphins hold the globe aloft, their snouts touching in a gesture of intimacy. The ashes incorporate paper ephemera and generational detritus, suggesting cyclical life and memorial residue. Emerging from the broader Funerary Icon project—where tchotchke dolphins foreshadow future works containing the artist’s own ashes—the piece interrogates mortality, recognition, legacy, and the legal architectures of copyright and estate planning, reframing grief into ritualized sculptural form.