1997
38” x 30”
Silk, masonite, mixed media
Fragile Site (1997), a mixed-media sculpture from the artist’s DNA Series (1986–2005), employs silk stretched taut over a masonite tray. The mark-making on the silk, which represents a nearly transparent chromosome strand, is designed to interact with light. This interaction creates a delicate, fugitive shadow on the tray surface below, establishing a duality between the physical object and its ephemeral, shifting presence.
The work specifically references the concept of a “fragile site”: a rare chromosomal gap or breakage that can occur, resulting in inherited damage and genetic instability. By manifesting this biological vulnerability as an immaterial image, Fragile Site continues the artist’s investigation into biological identity and the body as a mutable spatial condition. It probes the basis of genetics—heredity and variation—and foregrounds what cannot be fully visualized but is nonetheless operative within the human body.
38” x 30”
Silk, masonite, mixed media