Reconciliation

“This thesis exhibition, Reconciliation, examines how memory, loss, and lived experience

shape personal identity over time. Through sculptural works composed of cast, blown, and hot-sculpted

glass combined with mixed media; the exhibition explores the pressures that life events

place upon individuals and the ways those pressures persist, transform, and become integrated

into the self. The work considers identity not as a fixed state but as a continual process of negotiation among

past experiences, present circumstances, and future possibilities.

Central to the project is the material analogy between glass and human experience. Glass,

a material formed under extreme heat and pressure and susceptible to internal stresses, mirrors

the psychological and emotional forces that shape human lives. Industrial forms such as vises,

clamps, and faucets appear throughout the sculptures as metaphorical agents of pressure,

restraint, and release, interacting with organic glass forms that suggest vulnerability, growth, and

transformation.

Drawing from personal history—including family experiences, memory fragmentation, and

encounters with loss—the work frames reconciliation as the act of confronting and harmonizing one’s past

with the present. Rather than erasing past pressures, the sculptures propose that growth emerges through

learning to coexist with them. Together, the works invite viewers to reflect on their own evolving identities

and the enduring influence of memory on who we become.”

–D.M.

“Reconciliation reflects a sustained investigation into memory, loss, and the evolving construction of

personal identity. Developed over the course of my graduate studies, this body of work emerges from an increasing

willingness to engage directly with lived experience rather than distancing myself through formal or conceptual

abstraction. What began as an interest in perception and material process gradually shifted toward a more

introspective practice rooted in personal history.

Working primarily in glass, I became drawn to the material’s physical and metaphorical relationship to

pressure. Formed through heat, force, and careful control, glass mirrors the internal and external pressures that

shape human experience. Across the exhibition, industrial forms such as vises, clamps, and faucets function as

agents of tension, restraint, and release, interacting with organic, vulnerable forms that suggest growth and

transformation.

The work traces a trajectory from constriction to release. Early pieces emphasize containment and

compression, reflecting periods of emotional strain, grief, and uncertainty. Later works introduce rupture,

expansion, and organic growth, proposing reconciliation not as resolution, but as an ongoing process of integration.

Rather than seeking to overcome the past, the work acknowledges its persistence and explores how it can be

recontextualized.

Ultimately, Reconciliation marks a turning point in my practice. It represents a shift toward embracing

vulnerability, material empathy, and the complex interplay between memory and identity. The exhibition affirms

that meaning is not fixed, but continuously shaped through reflection, confrontation, and change.”

-D.M.

OBSESSED