On some level, my work resonates with a question as to whether somaesthetics may become what humans long for in the future. Stemming from my existential worldview, I spread its reflection by suggesting how I see that all terrestrial materials are formed by primary elements, and these elements include human consciousness in a physical equivalence. Or shall I say, I emphasize such material reductionism to be a necessary step in expanding the imagination and pushing the limit of my art, wherein reality becomes a transient remnant and/or a fantasy that constitutes intransigent matter.
I respond to a range of visual influences at a sentient level, which often yields blurred memories of representational components syncretized with figments of my imagination. For example, there are recurring images of industrial landscapes, biomorphic forms, European Classicism in which ideas of elevation and dynamism flow with fluidity (think Baroque), and cultural influences, such as Japanese Animism where artifacts have been historically considered a direct continuation of all natural events and phenomena, not solely as representative of these things.
I am interested in the sculpture's ability to freeze and petrify various internal states of being in the subconscious: its constant motion can be found in the process of construction in ways that create a “material’s physical presence,” and this allows me to view it as a living agent — along the lines of energy converters, atomic circulation, living cells or chemical catalysts —rather than as a still or static object. Then I let the materials themselves dictate eventual images with my evolving syncretism as it strives to become something other than what might be expected.
In seemingly delicate forms, the use of rigid and inflexible materials, and the processes I subject them to, challenges the viewer’s expectations, particularly with respect to mass and weight, in which laws of gravity are routinely defied. I attempt to understand the properties of different substances, breaking them down and then reconstituting them through casting, welding, burning, oxidization, and carving.
Un-preconceived might best describe how I seamlessly fuse together disparate materials, such as animal bones, aquatic objects, fossils, quartz, resin, metal and glass. Then classical stone carving methods, such as scraping or grinding away an object’s surface history, overwrite their previous identity and purpose so the materials can become a metaphor for my production as a life cycle resuscitated into new becoming. My processes often involve excessively exploratory procedures, but they allow me to see the physical world I inhabit.
By reconciling an anthropocentric desire to create eternal objects with processes of weathering and decay, I explore a reverse entropy, suggesting not destruction, but rather the alchemical process of becoming. While highlighting physical substances that have long served as Postmodern focus of criticism when elevating objects to an exploration of nature and divine--and these fall under a subsequent hierarchy that seems to still be ingrained in today’s art--the viewers will see that my process is meant to become a reinvention of the known (i.g., unknown.)