My work is both about and a form of communication. I investigate the limits of communication by delving into the kinesthetic, the linguistic, and the visual. The title of a work comes first and the resultant form a response to it. At its best the form "houses" the phrase while pointing out the inherent impossibility of doing so. The physical form is arrived at as I work while considering the title. By no means scientific, my creative process servers instead as a singular attempt to integrate what culture often separates. In my efforts to arrive at a more synthesized whole I have chosen the ellipse as a symbolic representation and visual shorthand for organs of communication- eyes, ears, mouth, nostrils, fingertips. I compose complex shapes by overlapping different sized ellipses while referencing bodily dimensions. All of my work explores the interstices between "representation" and "abstraction," a fuzzy territory where categorical descriptions don't quite fit.
Likewise, my work links the practices of painting and sculpture. I see my work as a conceptual extension of the relief sculpture tradition. I borrow element of both painting and sculpture, creating forms that exist in several dimensions while acknowledging planar (Cartesian) space with image-based flattened shapes. On the wall or floor, sometimes both, my reliefs echo and magnify the fundamental importance of planarity for historic and current human culture- architectural foundations, transportation systems, writing surfaces, projection screens, and monitors. In my view, a flat surface indicates an externalized human consciousness that as a transfer point between minds.
With a title, possibly some rough sketches, and a general direction, I begin with a full-scale drawing on thin wood. The drawn shapes are cut out into templates. Utilizing the templates, the shapes are transferred into a more full-bodied, slightly thicker substance with particular attention paid to the edge shape and qualities. Often I fabricates a wood pattern in pine or mahogany, then create a mold and cast the form in a metal or a pigmented rubber. The many steps of this process become embedded in residual marks, distortions, imperfections, and unforeseen spatial anomalies that carry through into the finished form. The form acts as a recording device for changing material states, energy input, isolation and release. Like a living organism, the object's origins mysteriously present themselves in the current moment while alluding to time passing and a future with change inevitable.
Through this creative practice, I aim to restore a balance between touch, see, say, think and feel- at least for myself, but perhaps also for others who experience the work. Creating art, for me, involves a mental and physical process where the result occupies both fictive and actual space- simultaneously – while solidifying intangible, fleeting, or elusive inklings.
Artist's Comments
Likewise, my work links the practices of painting and sculpture. I see my work as a conceptual extension of the relief sculpture tradition. I borrow element of both painting and sculpture, creating forms that exist in several dimensions while acknowledging planar (Cartesian) space with image-based flattened shapes. On the wall or floor, sometimes both, my reliefs echo and magnify the fundamental importance of planarity for historic and current human culture- architectural foundations, transportation systems, writing surfaces, projection screens, and monitors. In my view, a flat surface indicates an externalized human consciousness that as a transfer point between minds.
With a title, possibly some rough sketches, and a general direction, I begin with a full-scale drawing on thin wood. The drawn shapes are cut out into templates. Utilizing the templates, the shapes are transferred into a more full-bodied, slightly thicker substance with particular attention paid to the edge shape and qualities. Often I fabricates a wood pattern in pine or mahogany, then create a mold and cast the form in a metal or a pigmented rubber. The many steps of this process become embedded in residual marks, distortions, imperfections, and unforeseen spatial anomalies that carry through into the finished form. The form acts as a recording device for changing material states, energy input, isolation and release. Like a living organism, the object's origins mysteriously present themselves in the current moment while alluding to time passing and a future with change inevitable.
Through this creative practice, I aim to restore a balance between touch, see, say, think and feel- at least for myself, but perhaps also for others who experience the work. Creating art, for me, involves a mental and physical process where the result occupies both fictive and actual space- simultaneously – while solidifying intangible, fleeting, or elusive inklings.