Sometimes I feel as
though I am making flowcharts for an imaginary world. My mind is like a filter constantly
translating the world around me. Everything catches my eye: bright orange
traffic cones meandering between the street and the sidewalk; an enormous
building sheathed in black mesh from top to bottom; duct tape adhering
a handwritten sign to a newly polished subway tiled wall. These are all
urban works in progress, part of the transitory, the ephemeral, and the
makeshift. These are the environments we inhabit everyday.
The act of mediating different worlds and creating
unexpected juxtapositions is important to me. I want
to transform materials and insinuate them into unlikely contexts. I want
to create the sense
that they don’t quite belong but at the same time that they do.
Often I like to make something be what it shouldn't
be: scotch tape holds up a felt construction, plastic and pipe cleaners
frame a heap of pom
poms or a delicate felt-tip marker doodle covers an
enormous canvas.
I want the work to provoke questions: how are limits
determined (inside vs. outside)? How are values assigned
(back vs. front)? What determines what a painting is? My own work would
be impossible if
I did not question the traditional categories of
painting,
drawing and sculpture.
I am also interested in how you can start with a
logical system and through sheer repetition and
excess create something that
unravels and stops making sense. In my work, systems
overlap, compete and contradict one another. I
want to expose the proximity of order to
chaos and show how these two realms bump up against
one another. Digital, biological and medical systems
are our life support systems but they
can fail us too. In their complexity they become
unstable and sometimes quite fragile. Fragility
is important to me because it underscores our
own vulnerability. Like the makeshift improvisations
on existing systems my work is fragile and grows
organically. It depicts elaborate networks
that suggest mysterious functions and unnamable
machines.
When experiencing my work I want the viewer to
become aware of their own body, their own frailty
and strength. I also want them to become sensitive to their desire
to touch the work. At times
the act of viewing itself becomes physically
awkward or like a strange dance. The viewer needs to walk
between things, stand on their tiptoes
or bend down in order to see the work fully.
I want the viewing experience to be physical, visual and conceptual
all at
once. I want the work to
be both vital and vulnerable, like an ice cream cake
in the sun. |
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Fun, 1999, felt
tip marker, aluminum tape, acrylic on paper, 50x38x3.5
inches


Fun, (Detail), 1999, felt tip marker, aluminum tape, acrylic on paper, 50x38x3.5 inches
|