artist statement

My work is strongly influenced by my career in forestry and academic research in environmental studies. For example, the modern Western worldview of nature-as-machine presupposes that nature can be either re-engineered to perfect it or preserved to protect it. Both situate nature as object, separate from us, and both assume it can be controlled. In contrast, I believe nature is that which surrounds us and which includes us: from forest to cultivated fields to city environments. I take an ecological view: the world is a chaotic and complex system that can not be understood by taking it apart, studying it, and then putting it back together. It is a multi-dimensional web of dynamic relationships between a large number and variety of components that form, re-form and sometimes transform in unpredictable ways.

I use sculpture to raise ecological consciousness and to question our mechanistic view of nature. For example, in Virgin Forest: Chastity Belt For A Tree, I drew attention to the characterization of the forest as virgin and the imprisonment implied by the campaign to preserve it. In Erosion I challenged the belief that concrete is stronger than nature by exposing a concrete-like object to dripping water in order to generate pitting and erosion.

Recently I have been working with rammed earth; a medium I find ideally suited to addressing issues such as change, time and the power of nature. It is an ancient building technique whereby a specific mixture of moistened clay and sand is pounded layer by layer inside a form. After the forms are removed the structure cures by air-drying to become "rock-hard". The appearance of geologic stratification is achieved by using different types of earth and by adding pigment to create distinct layers.

In Landscapes I was particularly interested in exploring how rammed earth could be formed. The five gallery pieces were created using box-like plywood forms that were lined with the cardboard trays used to ship fruits and vegetables. In Monoliths, two much larger outdoor pieces, I focussed on using the layering of material to suggest a geologic profile. In Specimens I created three columns reminiscent of geologic core samples.

Recent work explores the relationship between nature and architecture and our idea or organic. Dialectic, three concrete forms embedded in a rock outcropping, was inspired by the commonly held perception of nature as "organic" and architecture as "geometric". The sculpture is situated between a rock outcropping and a wooden staircase. It models aspects of both and as such embodies the tension between these two apparently contradictory characterizations of nature and architecture.

Current interests include further investigations into the relationship between nature and architecture, erosion as a power to transform, a nd rammed earth as a material. Work in progress uses the geometry found in nature: crystalline forms; spirals found in shells; and the branching patterns of plants.

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