Horses have long appeared in my work through drawings and prints, but this project marks my first sustained engagement with the subject across multiple media. The series was initiated in response to a World War I documentary that documented the scale of animal loss during the conflict: more than eight million horses, mules, and donkeys died in service. Employed primarily to transport supplies and ammunition, many were killed by artillery, gas attacks, and machine‑gun fire, while others died from exposure, exhaustion, and neglect. After the war, surviving animals were frequently destroyed or sold, and their service went largely unacknowledged.

This lack of formal recognition became a point of departure for the work. Rather than functioning as historical illustration, the project uses material process as a means of reflection. By working across multiple media, the image of the horse is repeatedly revisited, reworked, and translated, allowing themes of endurance, vulnerability, and accumulation to emerge through making. The emphasis is on sustained engagement over singular representation, with each material iteration contributing to a broader consideration of the horse’s long history of service to human needs.

The wrappings that appear on some of the horses’ faces reference historical adornments and equipment used for identification, protection, or status, ranging from ceremonial trappings to medieval armor. Within the work, these elements operate both materially and conceptually, serving as metaphors for control, restraint, and use. They point to the ways horses have been shaped, marked, and burdened through systems of labor, conflict, and ownership.

This body of work functions as a tribute to the horse, foregrounding material process as a means of engaging with histories of service, exploitation, and quiet sacrifice that remain largely undocumented within visual culture.