Ancient Presences: Spolia

SPOLIA: Latin: ‘spoils’ Repurposed building stone used for new construction, or decorative sculpture reused in new monuments. The spoils of war.

For decades I have been playing with images from Antiquity seeking ways that bring them into a present focus; I take old forms and place them, or their fragments, within a new context, repurposing materials from discarded artworks or simply reusing the trimmings left over in the fabrication of an artists book. They are borrowings from earlier discards, a shifting of form that has at its origin, honoring works of art that many consider timeless, in order to make something new.