Sculpture
My works are propositions. Objects that, at once, both question limits and explore the possible through doing + being more than one thing at once, a hybrid.
I churn my collection of seemingly disparate fields of knowledge such as history of science and trade, craft, the natural world, queer theory, constructions of landscape and ideas of wildness. Material and visual histories form constellations that continually build, collapse, fold, overlap, and overflow; they are a way to see and an attempt to understand, the heartbreaking potential, not only in this world, but also in other possible worlds.
As an artist, I work to destabilize my own identity, activating risk while owning the site of production. This means that I negotiate between woodworking, a trade, and more ostensibly conceptual methodologies. I look to science and alchemy, histories of global trade, and possible futures; what makes a thing and thing; forces that operate below the crust of the visible yet play out in the physical world.
The works are carefully considered in size and scale to activate both the concept and materiality of the objects forming combinations that do not settle into taxonomic classification. Sculptures are assembled, carved, and constructed out of wood with exquisite craftsmanship. They are curious objects embedded with humor and are dead serious. From a whale with a city on its back to a large format tape dispenser to an articulating maple replica of a 6’ step ladder to pine VCR’s with a HULK cookie jar, the works resist simple taxonomic identification and slip against singular descriptions.
Let me tell you a story. Circa 1669, phosphorus, the 15th, was first found in urine and a short time later distilled from human teeth and bones, yet it was created in the cosmos by crashing stars. Linked symbolically to Venus in mythology and astronomy, it is the light bearer, giving us phosphorescence, match heads, and bombs. In our own bodies is the key to allowing our DNA and RNA to zip and un-zip for the multiplication of our cells. Moreover, phosphorus fertilizes, but when there is overflow, the multiplication and spillage blooms in our oceans. Still the phosphorus atom is pure, clean and geometric, an equilateral pyramid. The precarious condition of thingness is what my work considers and questions.
The works are materially specific. Native white oak, mahogany, native poplar and bass woods gesture to the extraction economies, ideas of preciousness, the exotic and the common materials that drove American expansion, the occupation of Indigenous, and the slave trade while also speaking to the material that has been used for domestic purposes in all cultures since the dawn of humans. Material specificity, process, + how the works are made are critical components of each piece. Layers of meaning are built up both literally and metaphorically. Each work has its own story.
