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Artist Statement
I am interested in constructing forms that respond to what I observe in nature. The work is abstract. My observations, combined with my experiences and surroundings, shape what I do. For example, it is possible to look at a landscape and recognize it as a vista arranged before you. It is also possible to visualize a landscape as vertical strata, as I have in some recent work, built in layers and collected in tightly bunched horizontal lines. I use abstraction because it encourages our imagination, both from the artist and the viewer.
Before I begin my constructions I start with a drawing. Drawing is a very immediate and personal activity and a necessary one for me to visualize what I intend to construct. I use drawing not so much as a plan or a template but more as a loose two-dimensional approach to generate an idea(s) or sense of what is to come next. While a drawing carries formal characteristics (ie. line, symmetry, space) it is equally important that it convey a mood or feeling. This combination of formal and emotional is what I try to incorporate into the eventual construction.
I use wood as the foundation for my constructions both because of its plasticity and its variety. I use various kinds of wood, found wood or wood related materials (mdf, plywood, masonite) in the constructions. Each provides a different kind of visual and physical appeal, but they often require a distinct or particular working approach. I use processes and methods from the woodworking tradition of carpentry and cabinet making. However, because my constructions are frequently made in a non-conventional manner, I often need to invent a method and system to fabricate them. One of the rewards from this approach is that it often leads to an investigation for something new and original.
My construction methods are repetitive and simple. I employ cutting, gluing and clamping in a systematic way that adds and subtracts over time. I cut a panel from a block of wood and run it through a band saw making repetitive cuts. The panel is then glued and the process repeated again many times over a period of days or weeks. I use glue that I have dyed black to create a more visible line - the result looking something akin to a drawing that has been distorted or is inexact. What is attractive to me about this approach of working is that it is a system based in process, but with unpredictable results.
My influences are primarily from natural forms. Some examples of these are gardens, tornadoes, waterfalls and dry lakes. In an earlier piece constructed from sections of plywood I explored the natural phenomena of a tornado. Here I was less interested in describing the shape of this natural form and more interested establishing the tension and destruction the tornado embodies as it drifts violently and hypnotically across the land.
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