“The figure sits, folded neatly within its canvas and dissipates into the abstraction of its enclosure. The trapped subject hides their eyes, disconnecting from the reality of their own external confinement, and consequently increases their internal claustrophobia.

While we are all experiencing claustrophobia from being homebound and socially distanced, it is easy to detach ourselves from the obscurity of our current crisis, to feel frozen with shock, and discouraged. It is important that we do not shut our eyes from the truth of this emergency and exposure of the precarity of our system. We must utilize this time of solitude to reevaluate what we need as a society to overcome the isolation and hopelessness that results from injustice, misinformation, and capitalistic exploitation.”

— Kathryn Wingate (Charlottesville, VA)