Rainbow Through a Mist of Rust
Growing up in Cincinnati, the materials of buildings (brick walls, concrete, steel rods, and sheeting) are always present, primarily in the demolition sites of old buildings and factories. Rusted steel rebar jutting out of a pile of crumbled bricks and concrete is an image repeated many times. These materials, along with the idea of rust, are discarded by many, not given a second glance. They represent a history of the Midwest known as the Rust Belt. My sculpture series, Rainbow Through a Mist of Rust, is made from the industrial materials of steel panels, steel tubing, rust, bricks, coal, and found driveshafts. The weight of the materials is not evident in the digital rendering of the sculptures, creating an image removed from the physical reality of steel. Time is a Distance (Spinning) suspends heavily rusted driveshafts to lean in space towards the viewer. Rust, whether natural or human-made, is a marker of time. My sculptures are also a marker, of the manufacturing industry that has left. My sculptures physically represent what remains, and symbolically allude to the populations of people who left. The Harvest of a Cornfield is a construction of steel tubing, oriented like a suspension bridge crossing one of the many rivers in the Midwest. Subtle ideas of labor are present in my work, through time and physically consuming processes such as welding. Labor is also placed on the viewers, as my works block, reach into, and exist in space.
The Humming Ribs of a Demoted Saint [Here and Elsewhere, Stanford Virtual Coulter Gallery, June 2020]
Around the world, Stay-At-Home orders reducing transportation and closing factories have contributed to clearer skies: less smog clouding cities. This project places a coal burner in the center of a gallery, to burn through a pile of coal and vent the exhaust gasses throughout the gallery, pushing the notions of what is possible in a virtual gallery versus reality.
Digitally rendered coal burner, coal heaps, coal shovel, ventilation ducts. Dimensions variable
The Monstrous Takes a Breath [Spring Art Fair, Virtual, 2020]
Isolation, fear, and uncertainty are themes that pervade our lives and thoughts of the future in 2020. While in isolation away from home, I went out to the woods, searching for images that resonated with similar themes to what we are going through. In the maze of trees covered in the night, I wove my way around isolated trunks visible briefly when the light of my headlamp passed over them. Haunting afterimages of trees and plants create an unclear image of the exact landscape I am in.
Digital photographs.
