Chain of Liberty, 2024

Homage to Statue of Liberty

Acrylic on canvas
Copper impact metal, rust and patina colours

130 x 195 cm⁣ / 51 x 77 in⁣


No. #202405

Where the radiant crown of the Statue of Liberty would sit, symbol of the seven seas and continents, the universal promise of the Enlightenment, a chain rests instead. Not broken, not cast aside at her feet, but placed upon the figure like an ambiguous diadem.

The gesture inverts the familiar promise: liberty no longer appears as a completed state, but as something itself held in restraint, administered, controlled, conditionally granted. The oxidized rust-orange, where the copper statue's green patina is expected, deepens this rupture: weathering instead of permanence, erosion instead of monument.

The painting offers no answer, only a question: who decides whose freedom is unconditional and whose remains provisional?