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Mixed Media Sculptures
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Myths of Creation (2017 - ongoing)
I’ve been deeply interested in mythology for many years. Joseph Campbell describes the role of myth in human culture as something that helps us define our place in the world, both on the micro and macro levels. Myths of creation and origin are some of the most common, appearing in all cultures. As our awareness of the world and the cosmos has grown, many of the world’s old myths have become inadequate. For me, science has become a mythology for the modern world, helping us navigate and find our place. The images sent to us by the Hubble Telescope, for instance, have radically changed our view of the cosmos and our place in it. The scale of what’s captured in those images is so immense that it’s practically impossible to fully comprehend. Most interestingly, though, these images represent a moment from a very distant past. We can see super novas that exploded millions or even billions of years ago. The action of light traveling through the vastness of space becomes frozen, fixed in time in the action of perception.
The works in this ongoing series are my attempt at capturing and even reproducing something of that phenomenon. Each piece is created by combining liquid and powder colours and other aggregate materials into small plaster shells and dropping them onto a surface. The work, therefore, is the result of a single action, the explosion of a paint-filled shell. The splatter that results, which itself is the freezing of an action, is then further trapped by being totally encased in a thick layer of clear resin. Like frozen moments in time, each piece captures the exact instant of impact of plaster shell and surface. Although I decide on the colour combinations and can, to a certain extent, shape the composition, each is semi-random, as the end result is ultimately out of my control. The works resemble supernovae explosions and the distant dying stars captured in images traveling to us through time. The process of removing myself from the creation of the work, too, is both exhilarating and humbling; each piece is an utter surprise, and the moment of impact is always thrilling.
The works in this ongoing series are my attempt at capturing and even reproducing something of that phenomenon. Each piece is created by combining liquid and powder colours and other aggregate materials into small plaster shells and dropping them onto a surface. The work, therefore, is the result of a single action, the explosion of a paint-filled shell. The splatter that results, which itself is the freezing of an action, is then further trapped by being totally encased in a thick layer of clear resin. Like frozen moments in time, each piece captures the exact instant of impact of plaster shell and surface. Although I decide on the colour combinations and can, to a certain extent, shape the composition, each is semi-random, as the end result is ultimately out of my control. The works resemble supernovae explosions and the distant dying stars captured in images traveling to us through time. The process of removing myself from the creation of the work, too, is both exhilarating and humbling; each piece is an utter surprise, and the moment of impact is always thrilling.
