Description
Hope and Grace
Hope and Grace was created during a period when I was studying African art and experimenting with African-inspired digital design alongside physical materials. The piece blends those influences with found objects, polymer clay, and beads, creating a layered surface that feels playful on first glance, but carries an underlying tension.
At the center are two large deer, caught in an almost joyful, dancing moment. Their movement suggests grace, connection, and a fleeting sense of freedom. If you look closely, you’ll notice small plastic animals—tiny deer, elk, and other creatures, one to two inches in size—embedded directly into the bodies of the larger deer, as if they carry entire ecosystems within them.
Below, partially concealed in tall grass, are two hunters. They are subtle and easy to miss at first, but once seen, they shift the emotional balance of the piece. I grew up around hunting, and the hunters are included intentionally. They are not caricatures or villains, but real presences. The deer are aware of them. In hunting season, animals know when danger is near—they live alert, attuned, and on edge.
The color palette draws from African design traditions, using purples, oranges, and earth tones that feel warm yet slightly softened. Whether the colors have faded over time or were always meant to feel aged, that softness now adds to the emotional atmosphere, suggesting memory, distance, and the fragility of safety.
Hope and Grace lives in the tension between innocence and threat, beauty and danger. The hunters below have the power to interrupt the moment—to end the dance and the joy—but for now, grace still exists. The piece asks the viewer to stay in that suspended moment, where awareness and beauty coexist, and where hope remains, even knowing it may not last.
