Abigail Lucien

Abigail Lucien (b. 1992) uses heat and fantasy as forces of transformation. Each sculpture, relief, and drawing has been created through the exchange of heat—from cutting and fusing to softening and scorching. Lucien wields the transformative potential of fantasy with respect and rigor, considering it a tool to be cautiously indulged. In employing fantasy, the artist draws on the malleable and evolving nature of Caribbean storytelling; narratives are alive, overlapping, contradicting, and cumulative. Histories and futures are built by a collective effort to make believe, more than make sense. They are an amalgamation of ever shifting perspectives and hopes, “a revelatory distillation of experience.”[1] The truth is dynamic, and, perhaps, beside the point. Lucien creates at this threshold of subjectivity, pushing back against fixed notions of language, time, and meaning.

At the center of the exhibition stands L’glise de Milot Anba Zetwal Maten, the Church of Milot beneath the morning star. The formidable work is inspired by the Cathédral de Milot which stood at the entrance to the Sans-Souci Palace in Milot, Haiti. Both were built in the early 1800s at the behest of King Henri Christophe, the first and last Haitian monarch, who had previously been enslaved on a plantation that stood on the same site. Countless laborers died in the process of building the structures. As a child, Lucien heard tales that those who died were pushed into the building materials, resulting in a palace built of blood and bones. Christophe would eventually end his life in the palace, and in 1842, it would fall to ruin following an earthquake. In April of 2020, the cathedral burned to the ground. The official account is that the church was hit by lightning, though the possibilities and theories are endless.

Lucien’s cathedral is covered by motifs that recur in both their practice and Haitian lore. The artist drew on memories of playing on the palace grounds as a child, surrounded by structures charged with untold stories. In the center of the sculpture, Lucien carves out a rare space of rest, an invitation to pause and reflect. Above, the dome of the cathedral is adorned with a star scape and wispy steel cobwebs, signifying the tangled webs and narratives we must weave to understand the unknowable. Chen peyi, ownerless dogs that live in—and belong to—the streets, circle the exterior of the structure, reappearing in wall reliefs. Butterflies, or papiyon, flit between the artworks. In Vengeance of the Land Carried Out by Papiyon, they surround a femme bull, covering the steadfast animal from eyelashes to udders. The elusive butterflies represent what cannot be bound by geography or the arbitrary lines of nations. They are the personification of the judgment of the land, a prophecy that will outlast the rise and fall of monarchies and borders.

A self-proclaimed “sentimental object maker”, Lucien’s work is embedded with personal and allegorical references.[2] The boule de fwa sculptures are dripping steel candles burning at both ends, embodying the ability to hold multiple truths at once. Lucien further complicates any one interpretation using the slipperiness of language—boule de fwa can be translated from Kreyòl as “twice the burn”, “burning soul”, “burnt twice”, “double kissed”, and “kissing two souls at once”. The iron sculpture, If I Should Stay, features two kissing doves melded together at the point of contact, losing themselves in each other. In a collective metalworking feat, Lucien and a group of collaborators practiced the careful choreography of pouring into the cast in tandem, trusting each other and the molten material. The resulting iron kiss is a testament to the fortitude of tenderness, a vision of romance as necessity, and boundaries as malleable. Eventually, the iron will corrode, the doves will become one, the cathedrals will return to the land, and memory will fuse with longing to create something new that will outlive us all.

Abigail Lucien received the 2023 Sondheim Award, was named to the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 list, is a recipient of a 2023 Ruby’s Award, 2021 VMFA Fellowship and the 2020 Harpo Emerging Artist Fellowship. Past exhibitions include Sculpture Center (NY), MoMA PS1 (NY), MAC Panamá (Panamá), Tiwani Contemporary (London), Atlanta Contemporary (Atlanta, GA), Frost Art Museum (Miami, FL), and The Fabric Workshop and Museum (Philadelphia, PA). Residencies include Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture (Madison, ME), Amant Studio & Research Residency (NY), the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts (Wrocław, Poland), The Luminary (St. Louis, MO), Santa Fe Art Institute (Santa Fe, NM), Acre (Steuben, WI), and Ox-Bow School of Art & Artist Residency (Saugatuck, MI). Lucien is currently based between Baltimore, MD and Brooklyn, NY and teaches as an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Hunter College in NYC.

1 - Audre Lorde, “Poetry is Not a Luxury”, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, p. 37. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1984.

2 - Farrah Rahaman and Abigail Lucien, Studio Visit: Abigail Lucien, SEEN Journal, Issue 006, Fall/Winter 2023.