|
|
artist statement
I use sculpture and installation as a means to reorganize and examine the hierarchy in mass visual culture. I tinker with the visual allure of popular culture to help me gain control of its primal charm. By doing this, I am able to profile the strengths and weaknesses of historical cultural archetypes, while developing a personal method and style within the sculpture tradition. Just as I utilize popular culture as fodder for my sculptures, my work often exists in the popular environment.
My work is diverse in the forms and concepts that each art piece explores, but my source material includes many references to Americana and everyday life. Popular culture imbeds many diverse images and objects in our collective memories, seeing references to these collective images takes us back to a time when people believed that anything was possible. Through these references the viewer encounters recognizable objects modified to serve adult concerns. There is regularly a reference to toy in my work. Toy references become metaphoric devices that allow people to use their imagination in the investigation of the sculptural objects and themselves. Many of my toy elements reference the type of toys that children in America have been playing with for decades. These triggers create an implicit and explicit narrative that enables the viewer to understand and remember ideas, emotions, and myths that reach across human communities.
|