The title of this series of lithograph portraits comes from Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, the lesser-known half of the phrase, “the better angels of our nature.” It explores the tension within us and the contrast between our capacity for tenderness and transcendence and our instinct for harm. Drawn directly from life onto stone, the portraits emerge through scraping and layering, their distressed chiaroscuro mirroring the contradictions we carry. Are we beautiful or broken? angelic or brutal? or both?
