“Forehand”

Pearce created “Forehand” to highlight athletes’ ability to break barriers — showing age and impact do not correlate in sports.

The piece completely made of basketballs and tennis balls is inspired by the rapid ascension of CoCo Gauff. She describes her game as “aggressive as possible.” Gauff has had several incidents where questionable calls pushed her to fight for herself and ultimately other tennis players. At a time when she’s not even old enough to drink, Gauff has already beat her tennis idol, Venus Williams, became the youngest girls’ single finalist in US Open junior history, and the youngest woman to win the US Open. Gauff has ushered in a new generation of Black female tennis players and although she’s the youngest, she’s leading the pack.

Pearce says the piece was also inspired by Spider-Man Miles Morales.

Superpowers: 

• The ability to break the barriers of age correlating to impact in sports

• The ability to escape the identity of being pigeonholed into one sport

• The ability to adopt intangibles from other sports (basketball) and implement them into their own