For Prospect.4, Hank has created History of the Conquest, a new
commission, an appropriation of Jeremias Ritter’s Nautilus Snail
(c. 1630) that is currently in the collection of the Wadsworth Athenaeum. Ritter’s modestly-scaled sculpture depicts a young “Moorish” boy riding on the back of a snail while holding onto a bow and arrow. With History of the Conquest, Thomas has enlarged Ritter’s figure to nearly life size. Drawing on mythological representations and religious traditions, History of the Conquest holds visual similarity in its grandeur and elements of fantasy to the modern-day Mardi Gras floats of New Orleans.

Exhibited in Prospect.4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, at the Jazz Museum in New Orleans. Now on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art’s Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden.