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© Abigail Lucien

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Abigail Lucien

Baltimore, Maryland

Artist Statement

A sweet rot. A slow burn. Charred rubber with a hint of lime. Salt in your saliva. Salt in your pussy. Salt in your eye. An aroma of burning tires. A smoky recollection. A second wind. A face tan. A night swim. Working in sculpture, poetry, video, and sound, my practice looks at ways cultural identities and inherited colonial structures transmit to the body and psyche by echoing and abstracting forms found in residential and commercial spaces. Part familiar, part foreign, the works employ an architectural vernacular – challenging systems of assimilation through material and analyzing systems of care through sculpture. As an interdisciplinary artist the many forms my works take do not fit in neatly definable boxes but rather actualize fluidly and in tandem with one another. A sculpture begins as a poem that then becomes a performance to later become a print that turns into an object. Employing metal as a drawing tool to address unseen systems and hidden forces at play in our day to day lives, the significance of iron and bronze in my work centers around gestures of recording as memory-tools and sites of recollection. Foregrounding my Haitian-American heritage as a way to speak to the complex and often messy negotiations one is expected to make as a bicultural person, my practice searches the intersection of belief, faith, and myth to address the ethos and rituals surrounding processes of care, memory, grief, and healing within the United States and the Caribbean.

© Abigail Lucien

Abigail Lucien's Portfolio

© Abigail Lucien

Artist Biography

Abigail Lucien is an interdisciplinary artist raised in Cap-Haitian, Haiti and Florida. Working in sculpture, poetry, video, and sound, their practice looks at ways cultural identities and inherited colonial structures transmit to the body and psyche by challenging systems of assimilation through material. Lucien was named to the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 list, is a recipient of a 20-21 VMFA Fellowship, and is the 2020 Harpo Emerging Artist Fellow. They hold a BFA from Florida State University and an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Their work has exhibited at museums and institutions such as SculptureCenter (NY), MoMA PS1 (NY), Atlanta Contemporary (Atlanta, GA), The Luminary (St. Louis, MO), UICA (Grand Rapids, MI), Museum of Fine Arts (Tallahassee, FL), Woman Made Gallery (Chicago, IL), as well as Vox Populi Gallery and The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, PA. Lucien is currently based in Baltimore, MD where they teach full-time in the Interdisciplinary Sculpture department at MICA.

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© Abigail Lucien

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