Wood sculpture
These paintings are primarily abstractions that are often both nurtured in line and form line and form while also being quite gestural.
The Narrative Forest is part of a body of work that began as an investigation into the space of the imagination. The poems in the setting of the park begin to redefine the viewers understanding of the space of the park, through the act of reading, the imagination posits a second understanding of the physical environment; there is an overlay of the poems on the park. The park becomes s a forest of poems, moments of meaning. Using fairly simple wood and steel constructs to support the poems the stands are a reference to the space of the imagination a space that is a construct of vessels of darkness, containers of the unknown. Each piece in this body of work is conceived as an intriguing container where the volume within the object is inaccessible to the eye and therefore is constructed in the imagination as a void with a distinct shape. The act of constructing a conceptual space initiates a second presence of the object: the object and all its apparent referents in material and form and the world of the imagination, a ghost of the subconscious. Therefore the piece presents the aspect of the void as equally important as the material substance of the work, it gives the work volume and presence, and it is a paradoxical transformation of materiality. The intention behind the work is simply to evoke resonant qualities, to provoke curiosity and thoughtful observation on the part of the viewer. By engaging the space of the imagination, the forces of analogy begin to search for referents with which to place this object in the world.
Paintings
These pieces began with a critical investigation of vessels of darkness, containers of the unknown, and the power of the void, The space contained within each piece is only accessible to the mind, by forcing the mind’s eye to enter into the object, to explore the breadth and form of the void, the pieces allow the viewer to transcend the limitations of the physical. The act of constructing a conceptual space initiates a second presencing of the object : the object and all its apparent referents in material and form and the world of the imagination, a ghost of the subconscious. Therefore the piece presents the aspect of the void as equally important as the material substance of the work, it gives the work volume and presence, it is a paradoxical transformation of materiality.
The work experiments with complex three-dimensional forms constructed in woven layers of framing elements and sheathing whose sterotomic construction style refers to structures found in nomadic African societies and tropical architectures in general. By literally weaving the strips of wood around a structural frame, it is possible to build complex volumes, to make irregular and unusual forms, to create dynamic surfaces.