Ramekon O’Arwisters new sculpture, Flowered Thorns, dives into the abyss with large, sharp ceramic shards strapped and knotted together, embellished with shredded fabric. They stand as cultural totems, embodying the couture of drag, along with the rich history of African American quilting. This series has been brewing in his studio the past two years as Covid, racial injustice, climate change and political chicanery were normalized. While there are numerous parables about thorns and thistles, one learned very early is the origin story of Adam and Eve. The telling of this parable posits thorns didn’t exist prior to Adam succumbing to an eroticized Eve, the original “dangerous woman”. That Eve changed the course of nature is astounding, but beyond Eve, there’s the issue of thorns. Let’s face it, thorns have a bad rap, they’re stand-ins for sin, illegitimacy, threat, exclusion – wars wage over “thorns.” Thus, we circle back to Flowered Thorns, as O’Arwisters adroitly turns prevailing orthodoxies on their ear with his compelling communion of opposing materials that cohabitate with elegant grace. His sculpture amplifies an alternative message, the thorns that bite are not the threat, but the liberating difference that bestow purpose and meaning.

Cheesecake, completed in 2019, are diminutive and glamorous. Each sculpture is densely wrapped and draped with decorative fabric, interspersed with small ceramic shards. The moniker Cheesecake is subverted from its intended reference of objectifying a man or woman, to a fully embraced description referring to his glammed-up ‘objects’.

Ramekon O’Arwisters is the 2021 recipient of the McLaughlin Award for The Project Space at The Headlands Center for the Arts, Artist-in-Residence program. In addition he received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant for 2020/21. Past artist-in-residence programs include the de Young Museum Artist in Residence, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Recology San Francisco Artists-in-Residence Program and the Vermont Studio Center. Grants and Awards include Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue, NY, the San Francisco Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Program, Black Artists Fund, Sacramento, and the Eureka Fellow awarded by the Fleishhacker Foundation in San Francisco. His work has been featured in Sculpture Magazine, the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, 7×7 Magazine, Artnet, and the San Francisco Examiner. Born in Kernersville, North Carolina, O’Arwisters earned a M.Div. from Duke University Divinity School in 1986. O’Arwisters is the founder of Crochet Jam, a community arts project infused with folk-art traditions that foster a creative culture in cooperative relationships.

Represented by Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco