Domestimutation
A recent trip to Ghana, West Africa inspired me to ruminate on the fragile nature of permanence and stability. Humans in Western culture surround themselves with increasingly larger houses, cars, and a plethora of objects to fill the need for security and structure. Individuals fool themselves into believing that the more items or wealth accumulated, the more security is established. This of course does not often prove to be true. The intangible nature of human relationships is ever shifting and our desperate attempts to establish structure and permanence is often futile. While the differences between Western and Ghanain culture was imediately apparent, it was the metephoric similarities that had a permanent impact on me.
Through my sculpture and installation work I am hoping to revert back to my first efforts at establishing my own environment through livingroom fort construction. Childhood fort building exemplifies the need to devise a safe personal space while emphasizing the awkward and inadequate nature of the structure created. Standard Western construction elements such as 2”x4”’s and ply wood mingle with less stable elements such as collage and paper-mache. Industrial materials are reformed to reference their natural states. The unstable relationship between man and man or man and his natural environment is played through awkward acts of balance and aggressive intersections throughout the sculptures.
A recent trip to Ghana, West Africa inspired me to ruminate on the fragile nature of permanence and stability. Humans in Western culture surround themselves with increasingly larger houses, cars, and a plethora of objects to fill the need for security and structure. Individuals fool themselves into believing that the more items or wealth accumulated, the more security is established. This of course does not often prove to be true. The intangible nature of human relationships is ever shifting and our desperate attempts to establish structure and permanence is often futile. While the differences between Western and Ghanain culture was imediately apparent, it was the metephoric similarities that had a permanent impact on me.
Through my sculpture and installation work I am hoping to revert back to my first efforts at establishing my own environment through livingroom fort construction. Childhood fort building exemplifies the need to devise a safe personal space while emphasizing the awkward and inadequate nature of the structure created. Standard Western construction elements such as 2”x4”’s and ply wood mingle with less stable elements such as collage and paper-mache. Industrial materials are reformed to reference their natural states. The unstable relationship between man and man or man and his natural environment is played through awkward acts of balance and aggressive intersections throughout the sculptures.
