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It’s really an investigation of essence prior to existence, which means that there is the
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existence of you and me, of objects that we make, even songs and phenomena that we create,
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but I believe that the essence of those things are already in existence before we are and
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that we as natural human beings, we uncover these things, and I call them archetypes.
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The best example I think of these is a song.
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A decent song is something that we can’t get out of our heads sometimes which is that it
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speaks to us, and for me a decent song brings on a transcendence, and perhaps healing.
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So I like to thing of my work is physical objects, almost like physical songs.
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They are familiar and they might provide a platform for people to transcend and perhaps
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even heal.
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I’m an object maker, you know, I make physical things so I cut paper
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with a laser, I use a CNC laser that actually removes negative space in a composition and
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then I stack these layers of cut paper and create this overall composition that’s really
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about space.
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So I work in layers and I start from my sketchbook, and I draw these compositions that are based
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on fractals that, they’re really something that we all are familiar with yet perhaps
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we’ve never seen.
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I’m very old school.
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I draw every curve, I make every decision on how this paper is gonna layer, conceal
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or reveal color.
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So in that, it’s, it’s a slow process and it’s a very meditative process.
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So I’m so happy to have the work out in the world, especially in a public space like an
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embassy, that’s wonderful.
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It took about a month to make and it was made with about four other um compositions, and
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they were all based on atoms.
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I was working with a team of scientists at Virginia Tech and we were charged with the
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investigation of chromatin architecture.
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My colleagues, this is their field, and they brought in an artist because their scientific
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research is steeped in complexity and a lot of theory, a lot of the unknown.
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And they thought it would be interesting to bring an artist onboard who also works with
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complexity and to a certain degree the unknown.
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And it was super fun because I was the creative person in the room so speaking with a biophysicist
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most of the conversation is way over my head but I could ask some very obvious questions
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about physical structures and theories about how chromatin of a DNA functions and why there
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is a dynamic response to any number of environmental influences.
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So the artwork that I created from that series, it led to some interesting fractals that were
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taken from DNA, both from human DNA and fruit fly DNA.
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People ask me, you know, where do you get the patience to do what you do, and its its
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truly about it’s like I’m an archeologist you know, I’m uncovering something that seems
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like it needs to be in the world and that gets me excited, so you know I go to the ends
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of the earth to make these things happen, and it happens to work right now with tools
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such as a laser and a computer but really it’s about trying to get these compositions
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looking the way I think they’re supposed to be in
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the world.
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