The focal point of my work is a certain type of isolation: one that comes from inhabiting a world that no longer exists, or has yet to be created. Through media such as sculpture, prints, installation and video, I attempt to cultivate a highly developed and sometimes unsettling sense of intimacy between the object and the viewer; in as much as the audience is welcomed by the sight of the relic, they are isolated by the knowledge of where—or to whom—it belongs.
The form and content of my work are inextricably linked, and best express themselves through my choice of materials: Traditional, primitive mediums such as bone, wood and earth coax the viewer’s eye into a sense of familiarity, while the language of each piece initiates a more complex exchange— the necessary sourcing of the piece itself from inside the viewer’s imagination. Allowing the viewer the responsibility of creating an entirely original and non-reproducible context for each piece drives home the inherent corporeal reality of the work, while necessitating a narrative without limitation. Tactile materials emphasize the visceral lushness of the work, which is contradictory in both its structure and substance; the pieces are simultaneously futuristic and aboriginal, natural and unnatural, practical and decorative, historical and fictive. In asking the viewer to construct the imagined reality to which each piece might belong, the audience is both isolated by the necessarily individualism of imagination, and welcomed into a world from which the relics in front of them have survived. The moment each piece is seen, the viewer is at once a Creator and a Historian.
I am interested in the physicality of reality, and how the simultaneous individual perceptions of belonging and isolation can be translated into an artistic experience. I encourage the viewer to use my work to negotiate the territory between the primitive and the refined, between the cerebral and corporeal.