SYSTEMIC ERASURES

Throughout U.S. history, laws have excluded women from full civic participation and repressed their autonomy. Systemic Erasures, presents women not as victims, but as silenced witnesses to histories that failed to see, hear, or fully engage them. Each drawing shows a fragmented female face—echoing how legislation rendered women incomplete in the public and legal eye. These partial visages embody partial rights, and restriction of life caused by laws like the Banking Act of 1933, which barred women from independent credit without a male co-signer until the 1970s, and marital rape exemptions that persisted into the 1990s. Reproductive rights, a long-standing focus in my practice, have taken on greater urgency since I moved to Idaho in 2023. Systemic Erasures confronts historic and ongoing injustices by centering the unseen, unheard, and unacknowledged—women whose lives were/are shaped and stifled by laws made without them. Paired poems by Portland author Emma Fricke deepen this dialogue. Each poem can be accessed by scanning the QR code on artwork labels.