Margaret Roleke

Spent

2021

About the Work

Spent is made from spent shotgun shells. These shells are colorful and glow in the sunlight. I intend the sculpture to engage the viewer and start a dialogue on guns, gun control, and gun violence.

About the Artist

America faces large challenges: racism, gun violence, global warming, and an assault on the truth.

My work is an urgent response to these issues and a call for dialogue. Through assemblage of sculpture materials and paper collage, billboards, installations, and cyanotype, I create messages designed to appeal to basic human desires for decency and good health. Recently, I began making cyanotypes that explore Black Lives Matter protests and the effects of the pandemic. During the Trump presidency I made work that implored compassion through cage-like structures that alluded to the prisons used to house immigrant men, women, and children at the southern border. Living near Sandy Hook Elementary School, the site of a 2012 mass shooting, inspired sculptures made out of shotgun shells, and to this day, I donate a percentage of all work sold to organizations that work for gun control.

I move between these themes creating sculptures, installations and prints that urge action on injustice. My work isn’t didactic, but it is made with singular desire. It expresses unease and discontent with the status quo and connects with those who may share those feelings.