Morgan Ogilvie
Lady Liberty gestures toward larger cultural myths that feel unsettled. As a symbol of mediation, she embodies how narratives are constructed, consumed, and degraded over time. The work enacts a kind of “cultural digestion”: she is a monument that has begun to consume the ideals she once upheld, reflecting how icons and institutions can cannibalize themselves. In this moment of societal limbo, where old logics are decaying and new ones have yet to fully emerge, the painting captures the tension between collapse and possibility. Like the stories of Frankenstein, where creations exceed or unsettle their makers, Lady Liberty is no longer fully able to hold the weight of what she once represented. Yet this unsettling process is not purely nihilistic; it gestures toward the emergence of a new logic, hinting at the potential for cultural rebirth amid instability. Further, she symbolizes individuals who once held tremendous power as leading image makers and narrative shapers whose cultural products could literally capture global imagination. How much more powerful are today’s social media feeds?