John Ahearn (Born 1951 in Binghamton, New York) is an American artist best known for the public sculpture he produced during the 1980s in the South Bronx, New York. Working in collaboration with Rigoberto Torres, the artist created painted life casts of his neighbors engaged in everyday activities, such as jumping rope or listening to music. Ahearn and Torres worked together with neighborhood volunteers on the casting process, attributing the final work to the artist who paints the cast. 

Ciba is an exemplary, representative work from the community casting workshops Ahearn held in the South Bronx during the early 1980s. This sculpture emerges from an important period in Ahearn’s career, displaying the technique that would define his practice shortly after receiving attention as the co-organizer of The Times Square Show (1980) held in a shuttered commercial space and a model for artist-organized, interdisciplinary exhibitions. Ahearn and Torres’s process emphasizes the singular details of each subject. The artists cover their subjects’ faces with a skin safe molding material, apply a layer of bandages to create a rigid shell mold, and place straws in their subjects’ nostrils to allow them to breathe. Once the mold hardens, the artists fill the molds with plaster to make casts that are carved and painted. Here, Ciba’s shy, thoughtful gaze is a pure evocation of childhood. The subjects of Ahearn’s earliest portraits were often the result of chance street encounters, but many of his later works focused on specific individuals in the South Bronx with whom the artist had long-standing relationships. Ciba was cast along with a group of friends when Ahearn and Torres were active in their Dawson Street studio (1981–83), a space also known as the Kelly Street Block Association Youth Center. This important early work touches on key themes of childhood, self-representation, race, and community with the artist’s notable commitment to honor everyday people.