MOPS

12 handmade mop forms - cotton, wood, concrete, interior trim paint

Interior of a room with large windows on the left, exposed brick walls, and a wooden ceiling. Several white mop-like objects are arranged on the floor, leaning against the wall.
Interior view of a room with large window panes showing a partly cloudy sky and tree branches outside. The room has an unfinished brick wall, a concrete floor, and white mop heads with long handles leaning against the wall, likely used for cleaning.
Indoor space with large window showing blue sky and clouds, wall made of brick, and art installation consisting of mop heads arranged with mop handles sticking upward.

In Mops, an everyday domestic tool becomes a sculpture meditation on repetition and a surreal reminder of the ghostly presence and absence felt by a long legacy. I constructed each mop from wood, paint, 400 feet of cotton rope and over 10 pounds of concrete. Each mop head is created with 120 circular wrappings, a gesture that echoes handcrafts passed down through generations of women.

Gathered in multiples of three, their numbers capture ideas of continuity and transformation, referencing the archetypal trinity of Grandmother, Mother, and Daughter or Ancestral, Present, and Emerging aspects of the self.

Their gravity-defying forms suggest a task interrupted. The frozen gestures take on a ghostly presence, as though the absent bodies who once performed these motions still linger in the room. Their presence is made visible through absence. In this work, an ordinary task is ritualized, carrying forward traces of ancestry and the quiet weight of inheritance.

An art installation of a mop with tangled white cloth on a concrete floor in front of a white wall.
An art installation of a mop with tangled white cloth on a concrete floor in front of a white wall.
A white mop leaning against a blank white wall, with the mop's tangled strings on the floor.
A white mop leaning against a blank white wall, with the mop's tangled strings on the floor.
White mop leaning against wall in art gallery, with gray concrete floor.
White mop leaning against wall in art gallery, with gray concrete floor.
A mop with a twisted white string head leaning against a white wall, with a gray concrete floor underneath.
A mop with a twisted white string head leaning against a white wall, with a gray concrete floor underneath.

I explore the construction of selfhood by tracing familial influence through matrilineage. Beyond both genetics and physiology, “inherited” gestures, tendencies, patterns, and word choices are passed down through repeated exposure and imitation, rather than being taught, echoing those who came before and shaping the selves we inhabit.

A mop with white cotton strands and a plastic handle on a textured concrete floor.
White mop with a fluffy head and a long handle, resting on a concrete floor with white paint splatters.
A white mop with bundled strands hanging over a concrete floor that has patches of leftover wall paint or primer.
Mop sculpture with ghostly presence hovers above concrete floor

Mops at AUTOMAT Gallery, February 2026

Three mop sculptures with ghostly hovering handles representing grandmother, mother and daughter.
Art exhibition informational panel with text titled 'The Weight of Ghosts', and a digital screen showing experimental slinky video with three ghostly mop sculptures that stand on their own.
Ghostly mop handles from sculptures representing matrilineage in red light of Persistent Outcomes light installation
White mop handles hover in sculptural installation in Weight of Ghosts exhibition
An art gallery with large digital screens displaying experimental video titled Screen Tests after Andy Warhol's work. Ghostly mops hover in the background under spotlights, representing matrilineal legacy.