Struggle

Small enough to hold, too uncomfortable to. Struggle is a portrait built entirely from concrete cut nails — the kind used to fasten wood to masonry — welded into the rough topology of a face, with their square shanks and hardened points radiating outward from the jaw, brow, and cheekbones like something trying to get out. The concrete block it stands on is deliberately crude, the contrast between raw material and worked form part of the piece's argument.

The choice of nail matters. These are fasteners made to go through hard things — dense, purposeful, designed for resistance. Assembled into a face, they carry that quality with them. The face is legible from the front and barely coherent from the sides, which is how this kind of struggle works: it presents itself directly and makes no sense examined from any other angle.