Living Fossil: Latimeria Chalumnae

In this sculpture I worked with the Coelacanth and its status as a living fossil by juxtaposing materials and image. I have cast the Coelacanth in copal (a premature form of amber) and placed it above a glass plate that is etched with the fossilized image of a Coelacanth skeleton.   By juxtaposing the cast of the Coelacanth with a fossil/skeletal image of the species I refer to its classification as a living fossil and the idea of looking at the past and the present simultaneously.  The Coelacanth has mirrorized eyes making another reference to the simultaneity of present and past; of looking into the past through the Coelacanth, and of looking at ourselves within it.