In the animal kingdom, the grand hierarchy of creatures that practically governs life itself, trust is a commodity. On every level, trust is earned and turned over. Microscopically, immune systems wage war on deceitful foreign cells. Extrinsically, beasts form packs and disband them; they hunt one another to do the bare minimum, the necessary, in the wild domain: Survive. Humans are not discounted in this critter kingdom—we’re actually at the crest of it. And we, to our credit, ingest trust on the moral, empathetic, soul-bearing level; betraying one’s trust isn’t just a survival tactic when friendships, careers, or socio-political ideologies are on the line.

Beth Cavener, an American sculptor, tugs on the psychology of trust like a free string. Pulling on the strands that tie humans together, Cavener tests the strengths of bonds between people in her work. Yet, her work strips the structure and rationale of humans and replaces it with pure, animalistic instinct. Showcasing her newest body of work, Trust, at the Carpenters Workshop Gallery in L.A., Cavener’s large-scale clay sculptures orbit themes of trust—namely, how it’s broken down, abused, and arduously rebuilt. Injecting animals—including a starving life-size lion made of 2,800 pounds of clay, a sinister vulpine creature, and a frost-bitten hare—with human emotions, Cavener’s Trust peels back the curtain on the belief systems that govern a functioning society.

In collaboration with the Jason Jacques Gallery, the Carpenters Workshop Gallery will put Trust on display from September 12 through November 2.