The Assassination of Winston Church Mouse, 2021

PLA, plexiglass, silicone, Citadel acrylic paint, clear enamel, resin

33 x 27 x 70 inches

The Assassination of Winston Church Mouse is a three-tiered narrative sculpture depicting a political assassination, a chase, and a daring escape. The work takes place in alternative history caught between the Mediterranean and coastal Balkans and combines the tone of a European spy thriller with the aesthetics of young adult fantasy.

The story reimagines a forgotten event occurring at the end of WWII and right before the Greek Civil War. Winston Churchill, allied with the Greek King George II, visited Greece in December of 1944. At the time, the king and his government had been in Alexandria and then in London, having evacuated after Axis forces started approaching Athens. Churchill’s arrival in Athens functioned as a sign that the king, unpopular with the public and opposed by the Greek Communist parties EAM-ELAS, would be returning. A protest of Churchill’s appearance in Syntagma Square turned violent and British military killed 28 Greek Civilians. What ensued was a bloody six-week battle that was the immediate prelude to the Greek Civil War, and what could be seen as a prelude to the cold war.

In Greece, there is a rumor or folk story about a young Romanian sniper who attempted to assassinate Winston Churchill but missed her target and was in turn shot. This work reimagines that story playing out differently with a successful assassination of Churchill, tangling together fantasy and history.