Cross-Stratified Footed Dish Carved Japanese Cherry - 35x15 cm
Wooden Painting - “Some Landscape”
Carved African Mahogany - 60x60cm
A Gaunt Figure
Carved African Mahogany - 45x20 cm
Tombstone Figure
Carved Bleached Poplar - 50x15cm
Cross-Stratified Studies
Carved Japanese Cherry & Silver Maple
Bifurcated Figure
Carved Brazilian Cherry - 15x25cm
Sculptural Abacus
Bent Laminated Bleached White Oak: Granadillo, Pecan & Birdseye Maple Keys 120x45 cm
Standing Figure
Carved Cottonwood Burl - 50x15 cm
Tranquil Plinth Dish
Carved Brazilian Cherry - 20x7.5cm
Tranquil Footed Dish
Carved Japanese Cherry - 35x15 cm
Severed Figure
Carved Cherry with Brushed Steel - 40x15 cm
Traditional Japanese Wood Joinery
Leather Sling Chair
Granadillo & Mahogany Body | Stiched Half Belly Leather Offcuts
Console Table & Bench
Cherry Body | Walnut, Leather & Brass Details
Sketches
Travels through France
Sketches
Travels through Switzerland
Sketches
Travels through Italy
What fascination, the affects of the imperceptible element of time; how it alters our presently fleeting physical reality in which we find ourselves occupying; where only through the appreciative observation of nature, you can become a part of something intrinsic within nature itself. There is beauty to be unearthed here, the collision of conscious thought and intentions onto the everlasting materiality that surrounds us; rock and wood and fungi... Life. The intervention and manipulation of these materials becomes an intertwining of the fabric, the timeline, of these archaic entities. Each successive mark placed on these objects becomes a revealing of time, one gouge of the chisel exposing years of life, of the struggle through winter, of the bounty during summer. How does one ruminate on these observations? Is there an affinity, when becoming fully immersed in nature, to find our wandering thoughts dissipate into the here and now? Revealed attention. How does our conscious mind, our awareness of our selves, our ego, change while encountering nature? I have continued to be deeply intrigued with this question, where the thought itself has become the driving force for an exploration of language, of knowledge, of meaning, of drawing, of creating. For me, sculpting has become the perfect medium for meditation. Revealing the life of the material and natural world through an acutely focused attention; an awareness of the nuances of each unique variable present within each piece. Wood working becomes an intimate practice of understanding the inner workings of the growth of the material. The chisel, signifying a moment of collision between two disparate entities, becomes a pivotal point in time; an extension of both my mind and outward manifestation of the life of the tree; of the soil, of the rock; of the wind and the sun and the rain. I would care for my exploration to investigate the affects of complete immersion. A sharing of life cycles, an intertwining of thoughts and actions with the natural cycles of the materials that are existing around me.
Meditation on Thoughts Writing Excerpt
One would be hard pressed to find something more inspiring than that of the natural world; materials that our earth has forged over millions of years on display in their sculpted form; each sweep of a canyon wall, every crevasse of a running stream, showcasing the history of the life that was once there, as well as the trajectory of where present and future life will reside. I find that every encounter I’ve had with these magnificent landscapes have been ones of fundamental shifts in the way I perceive the world; encountering life itself at its most visceral level. Through my sculptural works, I try to stem into these ineffable moments of awe that I’ve experienced in Yosemite, Moab, Saguaro, Sequoia, Pictured Rocks; each of which are just a few among a handful of the National Parks I’ve visited throughout the years. Yet, out of those experiences, Death Valley has been one that continues to remain at the forefront of my mind. Passing through Furnace Creek, the wildness and diversity of textures, colors and shapes immediately captured my attention and showcased what these lands have to offer. The scratching of desert plants, the suppleness of desert dunes, the subtle shifts in color and pattern variation of desert microorganisms; a palpable stillness yet commanding presence; shaping the way I observe and appreciate nature. Much of what I would like to do at this Artist Residency is investigate in more detail the wonders of what Death Valley and its surroundings have to offer. Traveling through the vastness and deceivingly desolate landscape to find the nuances of what many mistakenly perceive to be an empty land. Documenting new and interesting textures and forms through sketches, while capturing my wandering thoughts through a set of essays, and ultimately transferring those observed details into a collection of wood sculptural studies with the hopes of stretching and defining a language and a style of work pertinent to this experience. My work revolves around utilizing traditional Japanese woodworking methods, chisels, handsaws and hatchets; tools that require one to have a physical connection to the piece. The use of these hand tools also provides a certain amount of freedom to create anywhere. Not only is this method of carving liberating, but it is also deeply meditative, as it requires you to understand how the grain of the material is working, where direction changes happen, how to work with knots and density changes. There is a type of focus, adaptability and persistency that is required when using these techniques. A sharing of experience where not only are my conscious actions shaping the wood, but the life of the wood is shaping my actions. This intensity of experience is where I find the isolation of being in Death Valley to be particularly enticing, where only nature and my thoughts and contemplations are present. An experience stripped of the extraneous and saturated with the inspiration of the natural world that has been guiding me all along. The final outcome, a set of works that showcase the full scope and raw experience of everything that goes into producing a final sculptural piece. A collection of short essays and drawings exposing momentary thoughts within the creative process which will coincide with a set of sculptures that reveal the culmination of those experiences.
Death Valley Proposal
Project Statement
There is a universal dilemma with which everyone is combating, where your ideas, your definition of self, meets a new frontier of unknowns. A place where you are perpetually uncertain and ridden with anxiety. As if you were inching your way towards a staircase in the darkness of the night, every step becoming an exhilarating heartbeat; a moment of apprehension; the air being torn out of your lungs, gasping for the relief of that next inhalation; each moment contains an eternity. Retreating appears tantalizingly comfortable, a safe escape to a place of knowns, of certainty. Yet, there is no way of remaining content in this place of previously explored territory. Each breath you take never reaching the furthest depths of your lungs, hence the inevitable march back towards the abyss. Individuals come into contact with this scope of thought from a multitude of directions; separate foci with an array of trajectories. Each one of them, a fascinating rabbit hole that transcends time & place. These are conversations about concepts, abstract ideas of societies, cultures, norms, ethics. We can consider it “Meaning”. This mode of thinking, an extension, a phenotype, of our biology, has become a place of constant controversy. Pioneers of these ideas live on the fringe of thought, circumnavigating around this spherical precipice, trying to grasp the perpetually allusive by extending themselves to the furthest comprehensible reach they can muster. In order to shed light on these hidden realms, we require knowledge, some fundamental understanding of “Things”. It is this ethereal notion of ideas that permeates our skulls and morphs into what we describe as our outlook on life. It is what we define as our personhood, our foundational and purest self. This continual bombardment of thought seems, to us, to be synonymous to “Me” to “I”. It is a rare moment when we are able to identify this aspect of life as actually being two separate phenomena. We are not our thoughts, our thoughts are a mechanism, a tool, a way of interacting with the world. What an exhilarating thought...
Biography