Remarks
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2001
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture
Abstract
Reference to material culture is the key point of departure for my work. I explore human sensibilities by interpreting our interaction with our material world. Ambiguous allusions to human inventions, or constructs, set up a dialogue between the viewer and my work. I appropriate both utilitarian objects and language in order to trigger a memory bank of common forms and expressions. Like tools, human expressions respond to human needs. I believe material culture human history encompasses all human creations. My work references an impulse to record human history through the collection of common objects and expressions. I abstract these objects and written expressions in order to create a sense of wonder. Ultimately, I compose a sense of human history by eliciting recognition of material culture while creating a new context for common forms and expressions. Rhythm, letters, words, and other "marks" inspire much of my work. My uses of invented symbols and signs ambiguously suggest language. I push the relationship between object and language by compounding these two elements within individual works. The cast iron in Marks, allows letter-like forms to take on three-dimensional qualities. The cast iron gives these flattened marks a strong physical presence, and alluded to industrial culture. Because of their linguistic format and gestures these hybrid objects read as components of a sentence or word. Similarly, Notation, Keys, and Re-Make read as recognizable sequences of objects. The use of text and signs as surface treatment on other forms also response to the relationship between language and object. The signs and text also allude to industrial material culture, suggesting power lines. frequencies, codes, and standards. The marks insinuate a utilitarian meaning, but an unaffected disregard to function and formal concerns determine my intention beyond simply reproducing manufacture objects.