Fragmented, latex, pigment, debris. 183 x152 cm

Burning fingers sting, as the toxic mix of icy cold ammonia, prevents the hands from seeking shelter from the cold biting December wind. The morning winter freshness is abruptly interrupted by diffusing pungent floating islands. Islands that burn the throat with every breath. Fragments of a white stringy cloth lie scattered across the ground. A white paint-like mixture stands in an old container rapidly coagulating. The ritual begins. He stretches random fragments across the jagged wooden surface. His hand jar as splitters exposes raw flesh to a burning mix. He works as fast as he can else the coagulation semen-like fluid will fail to penetrate and adhere to the surface.   Day after day. Each ritualist act repeats within 24 hours of the last. Thick fluid flows through the cloth orifices, smearing itself into the interior of the fence.

After one month the ritual stops and the white surface stands forgotten. An organic skin in which creatures shelter, leaving the remnant on the surface and finally until they perish leaving behind decaying bodies. The once fragmented liquid surface becomes solid as the latex returns to its wooden roots.  Conjoined with fragmented, wood, cloth, pigment, and insects, a living cocoon evolves. September arrives and the fence now yellowed and half-forgotten has absorbed countless natural histories. Histories that have no depth but are purely surface-like effects in which the troubled history of the material is mixed with innumerable lost histories.

He arrives as if all were planned. Nine months in the making he tries to grip the flat surface and wedge and gap between wood and cloth. But the many is one. He strains and curses as his skin tears and his blood-stained knuckles sting. Bloods, bird shit, dirt, leaves, insects, and wood are entangled Slowly he prizes open a small segment of the cocoon. He pulls too hard and it rips. His fingers sting and bleed as he reaches under the surface. Prying the two friends apart. Births are not easy friends who refuse to be torn apart. Wooden slats and fragments rip two becomes ones Slowly the umbilical cord is cut