Aspen Golann

Hand built and veneered shelf clock with rosewood door, feet and pediment. Turned walnut columns and hand joined case. Solid brass clockworks, hand enameled glass panel, hand inked and painted metal dial, hand inlaid escutcheon. Finished with super blonde shellac.

Artist Statement

The DuPont family used their gunpowder fortune to shield themselves from charges of murder and rape. John Lawrence Manning, the 65th Governor of South Carolina, owned 670 enslaved African Americans making him the 6th largest slave owner of his time. Both were important patrons of early American furniture. Trained as an 17th-19th century furniture maker, I was called to consider the moral complexity of replicating the styles that adorned the halls of power in the early American period and to ask the question: Can their beauty be disassociated from the racism, classism, and misogyny of that time?

In my work, the furniture is female. Furniture performs invisible labor; it welcomes, hosts, bears weight, is seen and not heard.  In “A Clock Body” I use an iconic 19th century clock form, combined with contemporary imagery to examine gender inequity, power, and the body. The hand-enameled glass panel depicts the lower half of a formally dressed woman: the pleats of her dress blend with the angled rosewood of the clock door, and the clock face replaces her face. Her body and the body of the clock are seamless, yet her folded hands, the frame of the door, and the lock depict her as both a portrait and a prisoner. The juxtaposition reveals the duality of female social status vs containment, and contemporary painting practice vs traditional craft - simultaneously celebrating and critiquing the history of American decorative arts.

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