Acsend

Digital on print.

24x36"

Limited edition 2 of 50.

“Acsend”

I named this piece Acsend because the word holds two truths at once, and both of them are about us.

To accede is to rise into power, to come into a position that is rightfully yours. The throne. The title. The place you were always meant to stand. But accession is also the word a museum uses when a work finally enters the collection, when it is acknowledged, recorded, made permanent on the walls where it belongs. I wanted both meanings in this digital painting, because for women the two have so rarely been allowed to mean the same thing.

So I created a staircase. A grand one, red carpet, gilded and watched, the kind of European house that for centuries was never built with us in mind. And up it climb the dancers, in white, unhurried, certain, moving toward the high dark doorway as if it has always been theirs to walk through.
But the one I love most is the girl at the bottom.
She is alone. She is lower than all the rest, just placing her foot on the first stair. She is not yet sure. You can feel the distance between her and the others, the small terror of being last, of not knowing whether the room will hold you. I know that distance. I have stood at the bottom of rooms like this. The digital painting is not about the ones already ascending. It is about her, and the moment before she decides to rise.

Because she will. That is the quiet promise of the title. Her accession is not a question, only a matter of time. The stair was always going to carry her. The doorway was always going to open. She simply has to begin.

This piece is for every woman who has stood at the foot of a place that was not made for her and climbed it anyway. Who arrived late, alone, unsure, and rose all the same.

It was always going to be hers. She is acceding now.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​