Statement

Most of my work is made of wood, formerly trees  — living breathing creatures essential to our existence. A tree’s surface is complex, emotionally deep, and not unlike our skin. Growing up in a richly diverse tropical environment filled with a dense variety of life forms, I had a hunger to merge with nature. I strive to grasp the morphology of the form’s characteristics, both common and unique, moving and living in an odd harmony.

 

My deep love for this world grew into imagining myself as being one of them—a part of them, not apart from them. At age 6 years old I knew I wanted to be a sculptor, someone who creates and makes shapes that speak.

 

I’ve been continuously engaged in developing a body of work in which the individual pieces are treated as new words which have grown into sentences, then paragraphs, and then filling 30-foot-long walls, becoming a three-dimensional mural “reading” left to right in black and white and natural wood tones.

 

Collectively, my objects depict the convergence of the worlds of biologically produced life forms, the mineral world, our intellectual world of abstract concepts, written language, syntax, and the need to explain and appreciate our existence. It is a lot to ask of objects to be capable of explaining the unexplainable. For us, this requires a deep dive into the unconscious  to unravel this loose narrative made up of unfamiliar forms. These forms help me understand and express how I see the world and who I am in it.

 

In the absence of adequate information our imaginations go into overdrive to provide answers. Not a bad thing. Aside from using our early childhood inclination to suspend disbelief the work also relies on our anthropomorphizing of these art objects, imagining their evolution through hybridizing, procreation, and recognizing the intimate relationships with each other no matter how unlikely. We are a species in need of being understood by others and ourselves. Celebrating and loving our differences is a good way to begin.