Untitled (Study after The Talking Skull, 1939)
Wax, wire, newspaper, painter’s tape, recycled plywood
Julian Ali Green, 2024

This sculpture was created as part of my senior gallery exhibition at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. Inspired by Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller’s The Talking Skull (1939), the work explores themes of mortality, grief, transformation, and the metaphysical structures that support the human body and spirit.

The armature—made of wire, newspaper, and painter’s tape—was intentionally left exposed. Its geometric lines run through key anatomical points, symbolizing the invisible forces that tether and bind us. These structures are not only functional but serve as a metaphor for the fragility and support that flesh requires—like a grid of gravity in which the body exists.

Temperature-sensitive Cystalline wax forms the surface of the piece, applied warm and shaped by hand. The sculpting process became deeply sensory and symbolic—touching on themes of rebirth, warmth, and the act of forming life through art. The wax’s vulnerability to heat reflects the impermanence of the human form, echoing the idea of flesh returning to bone.

I incorporated facial piercings (eyebrow rings, snakebites, and a bridge piercing) to continue the presence of wire into the figure itself, blending adornment with structure. Devil horns, inspired by Vivienne Westwood’s 2004 “Exhibition” collection, reference transformation and theatrical identity.

I used my own body as reference for proportions, making this work not only a study of form, but a personal reflection on embodiment, grief, and growth. The final sculpture is more than an object—it’s a vessel for experience, a gesture toward genesis, and a statement of ongoing rebirth.