Artist Statement: Using Balance as a Medium

Sculpture is form balanced in space; this is the most essential aspect of the art form. I use balance, and its interaction with form, as my primary medium. My current body of work consists of sculptures with intersecting components that support each other to stand or suspend in equilibrium. Each sculpture is its own base, or point of suspension; no part is extraneous or redundant.

I’m interested in the tension that this produces — it’s an exploration of the area between composure and chaos, between motion and stillness. The combination of form and balance can evoke sensations from tranquility to unease, it can imply movement or suggest permanence. We experience balance in a very visceral way, we understand it both within our own bodies and in our minds. In this way my work is a reaction to the outside world, which often aims to arouse us in a very narrow way, either physically or intellectually, leading to a widening gap between our bodies and minds. My aim is to produce sculptures that resonate on both levels at once.

Process:

The shapes in my sculptures come from the world around me. I begin each by sketching on paper, refining the forms through countless iterations. The drawn quality persists in the finished piece, a sense of its two-dimensional roots. By the time that I am ready to fabricate the final work, the form’s original inspiration has become irrelevant to me, and may or may not be recognizable. Rather, I focus on the interplay between the form, the space around it, and the effects of balance that tie it together and connect it to the rest of the world. I work with the sense of motion that the form suggests, and with the emotion that it evokes in the viewer.