ghost, 2022, 62x 10x11 inches, modified Christmas tree from 2021, balancing bird toy

ghost (2022) repurposes a discarded Christmas tree from the 2021 season, exploring the "afterlife" of an object whose social utility has been exhausted. Stripped of its decorative surface and protruding horizontally from the wall like a structural beam, the tree remains a bare skeletal framework—a physical afterimage of its former self. The decisive tension of the work resides in a small balancing bird toy perched at the very tip of a slender branch. Balanced precariously on its beak, the bird maintains a singular point of contact that seems to both anchor and threaten the stability of the entire sprawling structure. This precarious equilibrium serves as a potent metaphor for the fragile architectures of belief systems. It suggests that even the most imposing or established structures are often defined and held in suspense by the most minimal, delicate points of calibration. The tree persists not as a symbol of celebration, but as a manifestation of duration (durée)—a residue of time transformed into a modified readymade. Its unnatural, cantilevered position echoes the logic of the cross or the totem, imbuing inanimate matter with a state of projected spiritual necessity. The bird's fragile balancing mechanism, pitted against the heavy, horizontal mass of the tree, introduces a quiet sensory unease. It mirrors the suspended anxiety of systems held together by invisible faith or infinitesimal adjustments. Through this state, Ghost renders absence not as a mere symbol, but as a physical fact of tension: a lingering persistence of an object—or a belief—held in place long after its original purpose has vanished.