Scales of Hunger part 1

Description

Series Description: “Scales of Hunger”

16.75″ x 5.25″ watercolor and ink on paper

This sequential series of images uses chickens as stand-ins for humanity, visualizing the imbalance of wealth and its human cost.

• In the opening image, a scale is tipped in favor of one chicken—not by chance, but because its side has been deliberately weighed down.

• Next, that same chicken is seen indulging in a towering, multi-tiered cake, a symbol of excess.

• In contrast, a following image stretches into infinity: a multitude of chickens crowded together, forced to share a single plate littered only with crumbs.

• Two stacked images deepen the tension. From above, we see the crowded mass of chickens pressed close, each straining for the meager scraps. Beneath, a close-up reveals one of the ropes—once tied to the heavy weights that skewed the scales of justice—sliced in half, its frayed ends suggesting both fragility and possibility.

Together, these works speak to the machinery of inequality: how wealth is manufactured to pool at the top, how scarcity is enforced below, and how the smallest act of cutting a rope might shift the balance.