Why Do I Return to the Torso?
Originally, I sculpted the torsos for my series The Anatomy Lesson, a body of work inspired by a 16th-century anatomy textbook by Vesalius. One of its illustrations depicts a dissected female torso, exposing the genitalia for study. Vesalius viewed female genitalia as internal representations of male genitalia—a popular belief of his era that framed women as merely underdeveloped men. This notion underscored the lack of understanding and attention given to the female body in medical science, a gap I sought to address through my work.
My clay torsos have no head, no arms, no legs. Yet, I deliberately carved a prominently visible vagina—an act of reclamation. In contrast, a 17th-century copy of Vesalius’s textbook shows the vagina neatly excised from the illustration, replaced by a blank triangle. This inspired The Missing Triangle, one of my painted torso portraits.
Revisiting these works today, I see them as emblematic of the inequality that still permeates our societies. According to the UN’s Focus 2030 report from March 2024, achieving global gender equality at the current pace will take another 131 years. Through a contemporary lens, these torsos represent how women’s basic rights are continually being stripped away, eroded in every corner of the world.
This isn’t just a historical or artistic concern. A 2018 research report found that violence against women is a key predictor of whether a society is prone to violent conflict. As noted by Catalina Crespo-Sancho in this report on the World Bank Blog (Can gender equality prevent violent conflict?), gender equality is an essential factor in a country’s security and stability. Excluding women from participating in society increases the risk of instability. Gender equality isn’t just about justice or doing what’s right—it’s critical for economic development and conflict prevention.
Similarly, in The Role of Gender in Political Violence (in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 2020) Rose McDermott highlights how equality predicts societal stability. Gender equality isn’t an abstract ideal; it’s a tangible, measurable factor shaping our collective future.

The Figurines: A Visual Language
No Head =
No Intellect /
No Schooling /
No Critical Thinking /
No Vote /
No Voice
No Arms =
No Agency /
No Creativity /
No Participation
No Legs =
No Free Access to the Public Sphere /
No Freedom of Movement
Missing Triangle
Vagina = Taboo /
Suppression of women as Creator of Life/
No Bodily Integrity /
Dismissal of the Female Body

​The Result:
A Body Stripped of Meaning /
Objectified /
Ignored, Disqualified as a Source of Knowledge /
Measured, Judged, and Controlled by Patriarchy /
Forced into Prescribed Roles for Male and Female Bodies.
In Ways of Seeing (1972), John Berger argues that what we see is shaped by assumptions about truth, civilization, class, and gender. We don’t just look—we read the language of images. I imagine archeologists unearthing my clay figurines centuries from now. What might they infer about how our society viewed the female body?

The Call to Action: Hope is a Verb.
We have to keep protesting this inequity—actively, in every way possible. That means continuing to educate women and men about patriarchy, dominance, and inequality, and the profound effects these systems have on our lives and well-being.
I lean on Hannah Arendt’s words for inspiration, though she wrote them in a different context:
"Even in the darkest of times, we have the right to expect some illumination, and such illumination might come less from theories and concepts than from the uncertain, flickering, and often weak light that some men and women, in their lives and their works, kindle under almost all circumstances and shed over the time span given to them." (Men in Dark Times, Hannah Arendt).

My article, Fleshed Out: Feminist Art for Now is out on REPHRASE.
​You can read the whole text here: www.rephrasemag.com/kunst-en-cultuur/fleshed-out-feminist-art-for-now?