Tangible Connections
Description of works 2004
As a sculptor and installation artist I transform space into place. My work has an interventionist aesthetic where environment and atmosphere play an important role in its meaning, my sense of place having to do with personal and cultural memory. No place is neutral as you always create language inside language; the place of presentation changes the context by which we understand the work. Each installation expresses its theme through the use of particular materials. Many works being on site projects use art as a liaison using materials, image and installation to reflect the social and cultural fabric of the place of presentation. In this sense my work displays a diversity of place, and a concern for intercultural issues, but certain formal motifs repeat themselves.
Over the past 5 years I have been working with suspended woven forms, made from rubber bands, found objects, tape, foam, ceramics, wood, steel, and resins that use the ceiling as the principle place of presentation questioning the dominance of the floors and walls. This reorientation is directly connected with my experiences in exhibiting in the Middle East and my concern for the use of architecture as an open language which houses memory.
The use of pop materials such as rubber bands is a signature in my work whether sculptures or performance. The material has simplicity and elasticity in hanging and the forming / rapping of objects. It has an absurd and erotic quality, which invites the viewer to interact, touch the works and make them spin and bounce. In this sense my sculptures use the hanging situation as a means to create motion in space, time, and identity.
So the juxtaposition of different images, a diversity of form and material, and the use of art as a social cultural process are a signature in my work that weaves the overall philosophy and concepts together. The methodology of the making of the work reflects the methods of cultural production of non-western cultures, this is especially apparent in the hand woven materials and in the use of the ceiling as the principle place of presentation. Place functions in my work as a crossing point between memory, location and imagination. Today we are continually exposed to image and form, which challenges traditional western compositional ideas. This stringing of concepts together is part of my strategy for communication. The new works entitled Memory-Strings create a sequence of surreal associations, fragmenting the narrative of the architecture where they are presented. I am currently working on a monumental installation in the studio that needs a 10-meter high ceiling.
New Works -Strings Con-Figurations
My new works entitled Strings made of permanent materials such as tape, wood, foam, paper and resin combines both found objects and biomorphic form in a monumental architectural composition. The sensitive handmade quality of the surfaces and the attention to their emotional tone and expression is a deliberate reaction to more prefabricated or media driven aesthetics. I continue to wrap the objects creating a time sequence and camouflage but on a larger scale with permanent materials. I want these works to express and inner directed dialogue both conceptually and emotionally. The scale of these new works are very important to the way in which they imprint and transform the language and atmosphere of the architecture .The pieces are designed for both indoor and outdoor spaces and public buildings. The idea is to combine both organic biomorphic forms with personalized found objects,[handmade-ready-mades], in a mixed history of suspended and hanging form. Once again the ceiling takes on a pre-eminent position in the use of the architecture as part of the installation. The images circulate around each other, in motion and composition, creating relationships and juxtapositions. They refer to personalized memories, within a fragmented surreal frame that create an inner cosmology. The narrative format is made to question and shift the sequence of meanings. The work questions the meaning of associative process in sculpture. How we construct associations emotionally and conceptually . The building is for me the frame which acts like a lens and becomes part of the sculptural language. In this sense these works have a site-specific quality as their combination and composition can change from location to location accentuating the meaning and language of the space.
In fact ,the orientation of these sculptures is critical of platonic form, its isolation and dependence on the floor and ground plane. Most museums and galleries do not utilize the ceiling as a presentation space. Historically this is a rather recent attitude. It is with this in mind that I have developed this sculptural orientation, to explore the many possibilities available on the ceiling. Each installation becomes something of an intervention and a negotiation as many institutions and galleries are unprepared for the use of their ceiling space. In the slides you will see a horizontal composition within the studio. These pieces can also be hung vertically, on top of each other creating strings of associations, and be used for monumental spaces up to ten meters. This is for both indoor and outdoor spaces. Furthermore you will see an installation sketch in a green house ,during an on-site event, Art Pro, Heerhugowaard, Thousand Islands. These pieces point to a new direction in my work in the development of handmade Ready-mades, hanging found objects, bimorphs, rubber, vinyl, foam and cast materials, such as resin ,silicon rubber and aluminum. Colored rubbers ,resin and cast aluminum elements will be important in the coming year.
Little Noodle Rhizome is an onsite piece made of rubber bands and found objects for the exhibition the Third Space in the Fourth World at EastLink Gallery in Shanghai China. The work composed of rubber, rubber bands, and found object is meant to satirize the idea of a hanging window in a Chinese restaurant referring to the ingredients in a bowl of Chinese soup. The images. A blow up Buddha doll, a calligraphy brush, a hanging horse, a long noodle and short noodle and perpendicular hangers a spinning dish are meant to talk about western stereotypes of Chinese culture while at the same time intervening in the space creating a transparent imaginary field of images. As in the earlier works these pieces are interactive and can be touched pulled and spin but most importantly are handmade in a manner referring to methods of production still current among large parts of the Chinese population. It is therefore a memory piece seen from my perspective as a western artist exposed to Chinese culture via popularized forms of exchange. Currently a small version of this work is hanging in the entrance of the Gate Foundation, Amsterdam.
The Anatomical Theater slide is an on-site installation at The Rijksbouwdienst voor Milieu en Vaccinatie Research, RIVM. This installation was made during the exhibition ‘Keramuse’ in Bilthoven .I was invited by the European Ceramic Werk Center to represent them. My installation combines hanging ceramics with latex and found objects covered in Polyethylene rubbers. The idea of the anatomical Theater is a parody referring to Anatomy Theaters of the past where interior body parts are observed for research. Some ceramic parts refer to bodily organs while others to consumed objects. The hanging concept again refers to the architecture as a skeleton in which organic material nerves, ganglia and organs and memories are suspended. This was a site-specific installation and I am currently working on large scale, colored suspended objects in the studio.
