An effigy is a rudimentary sculpture of a person. All the works in the exhibition involve “make-believing” or playing with hand crafted sculptures. These sculptures include life-size dolls, wearable full-body forms and masks. I use fantasy play with these effigies as a means of discovery. The process of playing and animating the figurative forms that I create allows me to probe and express some of the fundamental (but normally taken for granted) dynamics of human relationships and emotions. “Engaging in make-believe provides practice in roles one might someday assume in real life. It helps one to understand and sympathize with others. It enables one to come to grips with one’s own feelings. It broadens one’s perspectives.” (Walton, Kendall L. Mimesis as Make Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1990, p 12)

I think of my play with ‘effigies’ as a way to invoke their lives. The life given to them is a gesture of both magic and fantasy. We at once have a deep sense of recognition, often alongside revulsion and humor, at experiencing this deliberate and often primitive animation of these forms.