1. What can you tell me about Hollow?
Hollow as a concept, is quite different than my previous work. There is a very sincere
directness in the pieces. I felt an impetus to create a new body of work that reverted back
to more natural materials, rather than synthetic ones. The show also meditates on ideas of
emptiness, transience and memory.
2. How did you decide on the specific materials?
I’m often influenced by my immediate surroundings. At the time of Hollow’s conception,
I was living in the Shuswap, staying at my family’s cabin out in the woods. In a way, the
show is a product of my time there. Being enveloped in a forested environment definitely
had an effect on me, insofar as a sense of rawness coinciding with quietness. This is more
or less the feeling I was trying to convey in using untreated pieces of wood. I’m also
drawn to the idea of material decay. Wood has a wonderful duration of wear – the change
is imperceptible in the present, yet somehow it’s materially embodied.
3. Where did you source the materials?
Some of pieces came directly from the Shuswap (the charred stump & hollowed logs),
while others were fabricated in Kelowna and Vancouver. It also helps when your father is
a carpenter.
4. What about 'the presence of absence' is meaningful to you?
For me, it’s a way of appreciating both positive and negative space equally. Many of the
pieces have empty space between, or within the objects themselves. The emptiness is
contained. I think that each medium achieves this feeling in different ways. The
sculptures are obviously very physical, while the photographs for example, contemplate
more abstractly on the space that exists in memory, or perhaps more accurately, forgotten
memory.
For me, it’s a way of appreciating both positive and negative space equally. Many of the
pieces have empty space between, or within the objects themselves. The emptiness is
contained. I think that each medium achieves this feeling in different ways. The
sculptures are obviously very physical, while the photographs for example, contemplate
more abstractly on the space that exists in memory, or perhaps more accurately, forgotten
memory.
5. When did you decide that arrangement is of equal importance to the individual pieces?
Part of what’s interesting as a viewer is to make correlations between work; finding threads of connection, whether it’s the artist’s intention or not. It was important for me to arrange the
objects in a way to best facilitate an overarching dialogue. I like to think of it in regards to
Koffka’s phrase “the whole is other than the sum of its parts.”
In terms of when, Hollow as a unified show was decided long before any of the actual
pieces were created.
6. Are there any pieces that are part of the exhibit that did not make it in the exhibition?
For certain. I find that the final decision is always contingent on the chosen exhibition
space. There were other ideas for potential sculptures or for another set of photographs,
but when I actually sat down and envisioned how I was going to arrange the works there
wasn’t really a good place for them. I decided that it was better to X them rather than to
plug them in just for the sake of it.
7. What's next?
I have a couple new ideas that I would like to work out simultaneously. One of which
will be a spatial installation, in collaboration with an engineer friend of mine, Sam
Melamed (who helped me with Fringe I-VI). It will involve laser light and resonating a
milled slab of wood. The other is to start fabricating new works for an exhibition I have
in mind entitled, disorder. The show will be based on subversion. My vision is for it to be
uncomfortable, disjointed and perhaps slightly grotesque.
No comments:
Post a Comment