Cosmic Pillar continues Elif Uras’ exploration of the representation of the female body across cultures and geographies. Her practice encompasses drawing, painting, and ceramics, often collaborating with artisans using centuries-old techniques, and she takes inspiration from prehistoric art, craft traditions, and modernist painting. During her research into prehistoric female figurines excavated in Anatolia and the surrounding geographies, Uras came across sculptures that merged the phallus with the female anatomy, embodying both feminine and masculine characteristics. The famed archeologist Marija Gimbutas wrote about these forms as “an enhancement of the female with the mysterious life force inherent in the phallus,” yet, for Uras, they are representations of a fusion of both sexes. The sculpture takes its title from the Gimbutas quote, “the goddess figurine creates a vase from which the phallus, understood as a cosmic pillar, rises.