This series was inspired by a dream in which a woman slowly feels her extremities turn into branches of a rosebush. The Rose of Sharon refers to Song of Solomon 2:1, in which a man refers to his lover as a flower among thorns, as if to say that among unpleasant things, she is a beautiful and delicate presence.
In this piece, however, the woman is neither delicate nor beautiful: though her head resembles the perfect rose so desired by the male gaze, her body is metamorphosing into a grotesque, carnal, and corpulent plant. Yet her transformation does not so simply embody the sharp spindle of a thorn. Her subversion of patriarchal expectations is exemplified instead through taking up physical space with a muscular roundness that reflects the softness of femininity in matriarchal form.