Thraxpat
Small, hairy components of silicone orbs—hand-cast, hand-dyed, and hand-sewn—formed the basis of Thraxpat, a brightly colored, organic installation originally proposed for the passenger elevator at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Designed to contrast sharply with Richard Meier’s stark white architectural aesthetic, the work established a visual and conceptual tension. Deemed too confrontational for the museum board in its original location, the installation eventually overtook the entrance, walls, and ceiling of the gallery hallway—an immersive arterial space.

The title Thraxpat fuses “anthrax” and “pathology,” evoking a fictitious pharmaceutical product—both cure and contaminant. The piece is a response to the paradoxes of contemporary science: the promise of innovation alongside the threats of pandemics, antibiotic resistance, and environmental degradation.

From a distance, the orbs and their fine hairs form a soft, painterly haze—almost luminous—drawing viewers in. Up close, the jiggling, hairy, grotesque textures reveal themselves, offering an unsettling contrast between seduction and repulsion. Visitors were encouraged to remove an orb and take it home, mimicking viral transmission—art as contagion, as souvenir, as shared vulnerability.

Thraxpat asks: What happens when beauty and threat share a surface? When the aesthetic object mimics the spread of illness, or the branding of a cure?