Em Kettner: Cyrano

Em Kettner’s first solo project room exhibition at Rebecca Camacho Presents, Cyrano, includes small-scale tapestries, ceramic sculptures with delicate weavings, and glazed porcelain tiles inset into hand carved walnut frames. Each scene blends elements of humor, heartache, and social critique with piquant literary vignettes. 

Kettner relies upon playful caricature to address vulnerability and the human condition. She draws from the well-known tale of Cyrano de Bergerac, in which a romantic but insecure poet becomes the behind-the-scenes mastermind of a courtship between his own beloved and another man. Cyrano is therefore an apt title for a body of work that foregrounds the complexities of our entangled relationships with one another. In Kettner’s miniature tableaus, these seductive and voyeuristic tendencies are laid bare and extended outward: each object invites the viewer to lean in close to reveal the full scope of the narrative. Glazed tiles glint in tiny hand carved windows. Stitched and sculpted figures intertwine in positions that teeter between sexuality and deviance, shame and dependency. Whispered pleas and secret declarations float away on rippling ribbons – just out of earshot – through woodgrain and weft. 

Lining the walls, works such as The Lost Love (2025) and Moon Wooing (2025) directly reference the central plot point in the comic tragedy: Cyrano’s incognito evening serenades, which mark his conflicting desires to release or lean into a forbidden affair. Here, the prized object of infatuation takes center stage, and turns to regard her would-be suitors – only to slip through their fingers as a quickly dissipating shadow.

Finally, the titular sculpture in the exhibition, Cyrano (2025), features multiple porcelain limbs that merge to form a human-bed hybrid. Two heads drift to sleep atop a handwoven quilt, and a third figure pops out below, their arms folding to construct the front legs of the bed. The trio not only echoes the ill-fated fictional love triangle, but also, along with the other works on display, demonstrates the enduring presence of those we’ve lost or long for.