Installations
The Language of Flowers
2021
Sunflowers, graphite, rubber
90” x 108” x 12”
Life, growth, and death—The Language of Flowers references these universal experiences. The flowers’ life cycle, the natural elements that created and sustained the flowers – rain, sun, wind – and the bees that visited them are evoked by shadows that appear to be words written in a mysterious language.
Diaspora
2020
Mirrored mylar, steel rod armature, earth magnets
18’6” x 126” x 24”, size variable in situ
Diaspora: the displacement and scattering of a people from their original homeland.
The 21st century has seen several refugee crises. Most notably, the Syrian Refugee Crisis created the largest displacement crisis in the world. Many of the refugees were driven to attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea in order to reach safety, resulting in the deaths of thousands of migrants.
Diaspora references this tsunami of refugees. The work is created from mirrored mylar safety blankets, typically the first item a person in crisis would receive from a first responder. The installtion resembles churning water, evoking the seas the refugees tried to cross to gain their freedom.
Shadow Forms
2019
Wood dowel
280” x 113”
Shadow Forms is a site-specific installation.
Sometimes, there is a fine balance between objects and the shadows they cast. These simple arched forms appear to carve out three dimensional spaces into the wall. As in life, sometimes we are uncertain what is real and what is shadow.
Fluff
2016
Milkweed fluff, galvanized wire
16” x 156” x 88”
Fluff references both the minimalist aesthetics of form and the natural materials it is made from. The installation is composed of milkweed fluff arranged in a simple rectangle. The delicate qualities of the fluff and its natural susceptibility to the slightest changes in the air currents in the room suggest it could all just blow away.
Flock
2010
Agnes Etherington Art Centre
Aluminum
168” x 28' x 12”
As if arrested mid-flight, Flock evokes mass movement of birds, their aerial dance frozen in a sprawling pattern. From a distance, the play of light and shadow on a large wall creates an abstract pattern. Moving closer, the work is revealed to be hundreds of individual aluminum airplanes stuck nose-first into the wall.
Franken Forest
2010
Agnes Etherington Art Centre / Robert McLaughlin Art Gallery
Cedar logs, drywall screws, nails, Christmas lights, glass, wax, paper, steel, spandex, DVD projector
288” x 432” x 216”
Franken Forest questions our real and imagined relationship with nature. Combining video projection with sculpture, this installation uses industrial and natural materials to evoke an unfamiliar, uncanny forest. Real trees are reassembled with a variety of materials that obscure or cloak their true nature; other trees are constructed entirely from industrial materials. A video projection of an animated tree canopy plays out above the viewers' heads. The animation, created from thousands of individual stills from numerous forest walks, is dreamlike in its speed and fragmentation. Playing with the tension of both the real and the imagined, Franken Forest speaks to our constructed notions of the natural world around us.
Log Jam
2009
Cedar logs, bamboo barbeque sticks
Dimensions variable, approx. 48”x 84”x 132’”
The woodpile is a commonplace icon; Log Jam transforms this mundane and domestic sculptural grouping into something strange and unfamiliar. Using mass produced bamboo barbeque skewers to amour a group of cedar logs, these modular forms, randomly grouped, become reminiscent of other natural shapes such as porcupines, sea creatures, seed pods or burrs.
Looks Like Rain
2008
Pyrex glass rods
120” x 432” x 60”
In Looks Like Rain it is difficult for the viewer to determine the distance of the glass rods from the wall. It is a fundamental human desire to know where we are in space. This piece confounds our ability to do that, unbalancing our assumptions of how we expect the world to be.
It is constructed of 750 pyrex glass rods.
Article by Gil McElroy: Link
Tidal Mass
2007
NGB Studios
1,850 fluorescent lightbulbs, steel, 250 compact fluorescent lightbulbs, steel rods
29” x 384” x 648”
When I was working on Tidal Mass I was reading The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery. Inspired by the melting of the polar ice caps, Tidal Mass floods the entire floor of a warehouse with thousands of used fluorescent light bulbs. The piece is illuminated from both below and above, giving the impression of undulating waves. Commonplace objects, in this case fluorescent light bulbs, are transformed into a hybrid natural landscape through their use and repetition on a large scale.
Article by Gil McElroy: Link
