Drawn Wire, an installation at Nine Gallery, Portland OR
2008
Photography by Dan Kvitka
This work is meant to overlap one another becoming visually tangled while still maintaining order as individual pieces. The visual chaos and disorder of the work helps to remove any tangible associations the forms might have to something else. When viewing the work, my hope is that one will disregard any attempt at a material relationship and instead rely on some emotional sensation that perhaps will lack a distinct description. I want some feeling to preside over the work and remain indefinable.
The work I do is repetitive, meticulous and laborious in nature. As I am making, I think of what my hands are doing and consider these repetitive motions as a primal part of human beings. Through time, we are constantly repeating ourselves to better our world whether it is preparing food, creating art or brushing our teeth. I am intrigued by the notion of intensely handling thousands of pieces of wire, some several times each, coupled with the idea of seeing my viewer’s eyes scan it over in a matter of seconds. This notion is so contrary to the whole process I went through of making it. But it is worth all the work that I do. The making of it is the art.