"I think fondly of how well and how often my parents’ hosted friends, lovers, and strangers alike in their houses. I was always so jealous to be banished to my bedroom during my dad’s dinner parties, and so elated to hold a tray of red wine above my head during my mum’s apartment gallery openings. Coming downstairs after those events was the pinnacle of my childhood existence.

'The Grown Up’s Table' uses the softness of the rug to remember my joy in discovering all that was left behind, and the hardness of the ceramics to dig into the implication of things played with, enjoyed, and then forgotten. The freshly set table, the empty plates, and the silverware in the rug rub against the peeled tangerine, the stack of rind, and the tinkered with champagne wire. Rather than representing the body directly, this piece indirectly suggests the presence of humanity, leveraging shards of touch and play. While I felt jealous that I was left out of the moments these leftovers represented, I also reveled in piecing together whatever narrative felt right about the night before."

- Thomas Martinez Pilnik