Whatever it is it must have
A stomach that can digest
Rubber, coal, uranium, moons, poems.
Like the shark it contains a shoe.
It must swim for miles through the desert
Uttering cries that are almost human.
– Louis Simpson, American Poetry
I reference objects and materials that I commonly encounter in daily life. These range from household items like books, digital clocks, and bed sheets, to more industrial features associated with public space, such as traffic signals and sidewalks. I’m especially drawn to things that move us from one place to another, both spatially and psychologically. These shifts are often emphasized by subjects that mediate public and private space, like windows and gates. At the right moment, these common objects can make me aware of the present in my daily inside-outside journey.
The subtle awareness of the present and the passage of time as part of an artwork has become important to me. I occasionally use electric light or movement (as in the clock sculptures or the looping animated gifs) to emphasize temporality on a visceral level for the viewer, without making an explicitly time-based work. References to dated technology—alarm clocks, postcards, and grainy gif animations—might invoke a more cerebral, historical awareness of time.
These decisions are made in direct contrast to the feeling sometimes associated with looking at paintings as time “freezing”, but they’re also an attempt to situate the work in a broader cultural context. I think Dan Flavin’s monuments to Vladimir Tatlin propose that even at its most transcendent, art still operates within the societal constraints of its home culture—it’s all still “on the grid”. I want to use my personal experience with domestic and public space as a starting point to imply larger questions of how the public and the private function psychologically, socially, and politically.