My practice is divided into related, but separate bodies of work. Two pertain to the subversion of the values of production manufacturing. The other is a collaborative effort with my partner and fellow sculptor, Robin Baker, producing both objects and large installations focused on massive contemporary biodiversity loss and de-speciation as a result of human behavior.
In my personal work, I make work about contemporary labor, specifically production manufacturing. I inject playfulness and embrace the unexpected in industrial processes and subject matter. In my Human Doing series, I explore the imagery of industry rendered child-like and ridiculous in its simple obsessions and drive for control. I have produced objects, prints, mechanical devices and installations that engage in useless destruction, generate purposeless noise, highlight environmental damage or degradation, or celebrate redundancy; objects heavily critical of the methods and mentalities of production manufacturing and its broader social and cultural implications. From these conceptual origins, I have also developed a body of abstractions based on a subversion of the processes and outcomes of production. In the Biomechanical Evolution series, objects, drawings, and prints are created in industrial and fine art media, produced by repetition of action and form paralleling mass-produced objects I fabricated in industry as a welder/fabricator. The outcomes of this repetition are not in pursuit of the perfection of sameness, but of deviation. Each repetition of the process yields a new and unpredictable result.
My collaborative series, The Extinction Project, integrates the use of 3D scans and prints of critically endangered or extinct species with traditional casting methods. Detailed scans of the skulls of precious specimens are rendered, 3D printed, molded and cast in bronze. The objects are then situated in context with the circumstances leading to their decline, and/or the human efforts being made to protect and preserve them. These installations have expanded to include audio, video projection, and a print series. This project has included input and collaboration with the biology department at the University of Notre Dame, wildlife biologists with the state of Kentucky, and drawn from the research of other specialists focusing on habitat and species conservation. It is intended to be directly educational; to render biological data or research assessments into visual experiences that make the loss of each living species real and tangible to the general public.
These bodies of work intersect in intent and media. Both seek to visually explore the relationships between our socio-economic structures and the living world, human and non. Both are critical of the careless nature with which we engage in destructive and damaging behaviors, and the ramifications on the living biosphere and on human society. Both involve media informing concept. Amber Scoon, artist and theorist, states, “Form and the activities that create form are one thing. Form cannot be separated from the activities that create form,” and “the act of creation involves observation and imagination, play and desire.” These elements of creation, allowed their flexibility, have resulted in bodies of work that are extremely divergent, but laced with common intent.
I have achieved a number of professional goals in my research in recent years. I was curated into Altamira: The Primal Urge to Create, in the Silos at Sawyer Yard for Sculpture Month Houston, where my collaboration produced 2 side-by-side multi-disciplinary installations. This included 2 receptions, a printed catalogue, and interviews. (youtube.com/watch?v=YrrqpahNJks) I participated in the Atelierhaus Hilmsen International Symposium on 3D Printing and Metal Casting in Germany 2022, including an artist talk, community iron pour, and 1 casting left for the Atelier collection. I have a public sculpture juried onto the Yokna Sculpture Trail in Oxford, Mississippi for 2 years. I was curated into A Different Kind of Weapon, an exhibition about art and activism, at Alabama Contemporary for a multi-disciplinary installation, including online studio visit and artist talk. I had a solo show at New Mexico Highlands University, postponed due to COVID 19, rescheduled for August of ‘23. My collaboration won the jurors award for Matter Matters- Oso Bay Sculpture Biennial, and included an online artist talk. I was a guest foundry artist for the remote National Conference for Contemporary Cast Iron Art at TAMUCC-‘21. I was juried into numerous additional exhibitions both physical and online.
Moving forward, I am working to expand my exhibition record with additional solo exhibitions, public work, more international experience, and additional summer residencies and symposia.