Click the link to view the category
Artist: Sandro Trapani
Title: Reticent
Medium: Limited Edition Bronze Sculpture
Size: 70 cm x 29 cm x 21 cm
Status: Available
Artist Statement:
The Latin root of reticent is reticére, meaning “to be silent.” While often linked to shyness or reserve, in English, it has come to mean more than reluctance. It implies restraint, not arrogance, but a quiet refusal to justify oneself or seek belonging.
Nicolas Jose captures this well: “…reticent, where the prefix ‘re’ suggests an ingrained restraint to prevailing currents.”
The sculpture Reticent (2024) embodies this idea. It presents just enough for viewers to form meaning through gaze, pose, and surface, leaving interpretation open. In today’s culture of constant self-definition and explanation, this work resists overexposure.
During its creation, I let the sculpture “speak” to me. Conversations, especially with my daughter, often circled the sculpture’s race, gender, and identity, to which I replied, “I don’t really know.” That became enough. The sculpture revealed itself gradually, and “they” became its signifier.
For me, reticence in making is a form of respect: the work need not explain itself fully, just as we need not tell others everything about ourselves. Art, like identity, can be both present and reserved, offering only what it chooses to share.
Click the link to view the category
Like it, share it. Thank you.
