ropes of innocence

Gel transfer, graphite, paint, mixed media on canvas; monumental scroll format

Interspersed within the rope structure are images of antique baby dolls—objects historically designed to rehearse caregiving, obedience, and gendered futurity. The rope, traditionally associated with labor, restraint, and measurement, becomes a visual grammar that binds these figures into a continuous system. Loops replace knots; continuity replaces closure.

Rather than narrating a single event, the work proposes a condition: childhood as an infrastructure shaped by repetition, control, and inherited patterns. The use of pale washes and translucent layering resists spectacle, emphasizing instead accumulation and quiet pressure. The work positions early life not as innocence, but as a site where social order is rehearsed and internalized.