Crucified Head

Crucified Head

Faceless Head No.098
  • Dimensions: 24 × 36 cm
  • Materials: Oxidized terracotta, rusty bolts and nails
  • Year: 2015
  • Availability: Unique piece
  • Price: Upon request
Artistic Statement of the Head

The rough oxidized surface of this head is pierced by nails and bolts embedded in the clay, entering the material like stigmata. The eyes, hollow and almost absent, intensify a sense of silence and restrained suffering. The piece embodies a wounded face, where memory is fossilized in rust.

Artistic Statement of the Collection

Within 100 Faceless Heads, this sculpture stands out for its sacrificial character. It resonates both with traditions where iron symbolizes strength and memory, and with contemporary realities of bodies scarred by oppression and violence.

Symbolism

The nails situate this head within a symbolic register of crucifixion, constraint, but also resilience. The rusted metal acts as a seal of time, suggesting that pain can become memory, and that wounds, through oxidation, eventually transform into testimony.

The “100 Faceless Heads” Collection

A sculpted memory, a universal story

The “100 Faceless Heads” collection brings together one hundred unique sculptures, hand-shaped in terracotta and rusted metal. These works embody the invisible faces of our collective history: undocumented migrants drowned at sea, victims of slavery, the forgotten of genocides, the nameless whose memories fade away.

Each of these heads, deliberately devoid of features, symbolizes a life, a past, a suspended story. Faceless, they become the silent bearers of individual and collective memories, inviting us to reflect on our shared humanity.

A committed and universal message

Through this series, the artist calls on us to recognize these erased lives and to rebuild bridges between past and future. “I raise a glass to the undocumented who perish in seas and deserts, I denounce the macabre thunder of cannons and wars…” he declares, expressing the emotional and political power of this work.

“100 Faceless Heads” is far more than an art collection: it is a sculptural photo library, a call to memory, to dialogue, and to a deeper understanding of our common roots.

Gustave Akpéhou DJONDA

Self-taught Visual Artist

Passionate about collective memory and questions of identity, the artist works with clay and metal to give form to what is often invisible or forgotten. Through the series “100 Heads Without Faces,” he offers a space for reflection and dialogue on the wounds of the past and the hopes for a more just future.

Comme un poisson dans l’eau, exposition environnementale

2016
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Les Géants se lèvent, l’Afrique avance

2012
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Ce Rouge qui m’appartient

2000
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Lomé, Togo