Thomas Houseago
Flower & Death

Thomas Houseago’s large-scale sculptures often retain textures that reveal the marks of their making. Flower & Death depicts a skeletal figure rising from a colossal flower, symbolizing at once decay and rebirth. Conceived in 2018 as a tribute to the artist’s late father and carved from an ancient redwood, the work later came to reflect his own experience of transformation. During a personal crisis in 2020, Houseago abandoned sculpture, returning only after a long period of recovery to create a new work from this piece. Now cast in bronze—a material that oxidizes and erodes over time—the artwork takes on added layers of meaning about strength and change.