This contemplative figurative bronze sculpture of a crouching female nude started off as a portrayal of Psyche, Cupid’s mortal wife, who had to suffer his loss before she could discover the true nature of love. Only when she learned how to love with trust and abandon did her immortal husband return to her.

Psyche’s spiritual transmutation from her focus on the intrinsically conflicted process of mind, to the unified experience of emotional truth, has traditionally been associated with the growth cycle of the butterfly. After a time of loss, suffering and reflection, she emerges from her introspection as a liberated being elevated on the wings of love.

Initially, the figure of Psyche was enshrouded in a chrysalis shell resembling that of a moth or a butterfly. But after months of work sculpting the curled-up figure in a thin naturalistic shell, she suddenly emerged this form: a softly-undulating meditation on the gentle shapes of the female form, in a gesture subtly suggesting the chrysalis that had once enfolded her body. And in this new form I aim to convey the generalized truth that spiritual beauty is born in sadness and the solitude of inward reflection.

THE METAMORPHOSES COLLECTION