The Fallen

2010-2012

Our concept of the fallen American soldier is trapped in a stylized image derived from history books and Hollywood. Our media in the United States is censored so we never see real photos of dead American soldiers. Our ability to separate the individual man from the myth he represents is challenging and we often rely on the hero archetype our culture has created.

The Fallen investigates the problematic relationship between the mythic and the sensory, questioning the abstract image of the American war hero we carry. The mythic hero is an aberration, an imagined hero crafted into an idealized image of masculine form. His image is a secular icon, a symbol for the cause, fusing the cause and the event in our collective history. The Fallen represents the union of truth with fiction that creates the mythic American war hero; an anonymous young man who embodies our democratic ideals and strength. The hero who has become our sacred secular Christ figure.