Mestiza
2026, fired, glazed clay, hair, reclaimed wood
In the Spanish colonial Philippines, mestiza described a woman of mixed ancestry, most commonly with Spanish and Indigenous Filipino parents. The term identified her mixed heritage within the colonial system of racial and social classification.
The title evokes a state of hybridity and in-betweenness. The two glazed clay forms suggest corporeal presences, their surfaces recalling wounded and scarred skin, oscillating between polished glaze and rawness. Long strands of black hair emerge from their openings, introducing an unsettling sense of organic growth. Resting on narrow benches made from reclaimed wood from a Swiss barn, whose forms evoke Asian furniture, the objects take on the appearance of severed heads, like figures suspended between the familiar and the uncanny.