PEOPLE IN NATURE

From

Tree
to
Log
to
Piling
to
Sculpture

I wanted to make a group of sculptures that would have a mass and weight that was real. Not the shell of a sculpture but instead something that was solid from the inside out. I began thinking about “sculpture in the round” in a very literal way and the forms became decidedly totemic.

Tree-hugging size, the proportions relate to myself, to other people, and to architecture.

I appreciate the engineering term “piling”: a group of wood, steel or concrete columns that support a larger structure. When taken out of its original context, the word calls to mind something much more tangential and internal.

Piling it on: piling on meaning, piling on paint, piling personality onto a material.

In the context of this exhibition, these pilings are self-contained supports for their own wooden bodies. Consolidated and encased, the sculptures reinforce something heady and human. It’s in this space where things reshape and shape up.

A painted forest of objects where colors animate and rest against one another, melon-balled pools submerge, vertical stacks glow, segments stand trim, and the muscular flex of material resonates. Head-size holes and arm-width seams clear things out. There is a weird potential or momentum in being able to reach your arm through an otherwise solid object.