Three Tries: The Resurrection
Echo Contemporary, Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Three Tries: The Resurrection is the third and final act of the Three Tries performance series, taking place within and ultimately exiting the Edifice. The work stages a return of the body to present time and lived reality following a sustained process of psychological and physical reconstruction.

The performance begins within the enclosed structure, where the artist remains in a state of containment. The Edifice is opened by a second figure—the artist’s guardian angel—who initiates release, echoing the angel described in the Gospel of Matthew (28:2) who descends from heaven and rolls away the stone from Jesus’ tomb. The body is allowed to exit the space and moves toward a threshold where the audience becomes fully visible, marking a shift from isolation to re-entry.

At the center of the work, garments and objects from prior performances are reintroduced. The artist is handed the clothing worn in the initial moment of Three Tries: The Beginning, along with the offering plate from An Altar for My Ego. The plate holds the artist’s hair, ink, and a needle. Kneeling, the artist takes the offering and uses it to mark three slashes across their collarbone, each corresponding to both an attempt to conform to imposed systems of control and an effort to revisit and rewrite personal trauma. A fourth line is then drawn through them, signifying the final attempt—an act that acknowledges repetition while marking the artist’s ability to move beyond it through the completion of the Three Tries series.

The body is re-dressed, replacing institutional garments with clothing associated with self-definition. The performance concludes with the artist fully exiting the Edifice, returning the body to the present and back into reality.

Three Tries: The Resurrection frames transformation as an embodied act, where the body carries its history while reclaiming authorship through deliberate gesture.

Photography by Rachel Warren and Savannah O’Leary.