Statement

Having hindsight they say is everything… Looking back on several years of studio work, it is possible for me to articulate a defining interest and direction. It is a pleasant experience to see that the work has a character and tone that comes from slow processes, and evolution of form.

Earlier, as a younger artist, especially coming from the theory driven environment of graduate school, I always began with the concept. There was a burden to say what the purpose was, a social implement, a relevence for why things were done and what the references were. In the end, it was important to digest the experience and redefine it for oneself.

I am clearly interested in architectural form, I don't really know why since I'm not a fan of modern architecture. But I like drawings of space as a vehicle to engage with the two dimensional surface itself, in this sense using perspective as a literal gate way into the empty canvas. As I experimented more and more with paint, materials and color, it was clear to me I had to engage with abstract and formal concepts of space as well. And I like building things.

Putting a Red square or a Black square in front of the perspective point was an exciting thing for me (see Knowing that knowing is not physical). It blocked the pivotal point of the picture and set before it an absolute element. The square was an unnegotiable object, it was a square and that was it. Earlier, my architectural pictures had something to do with vast mythological spaces and the sense of control that was imposed through those instititutional themes. I felt that the abstract shapes played with the idea of control in the sense of negation, preventing the eye from following its course to the point of origin. That time was a bridge, and a good transition to the current work.

I feel that my interests have become more about looking, representing and experiencing space. That is a very general thing to say, but the concept of space itself is a very vague, big open thing. That's space! So I have approached it the way a navigator would approach big open space, and that is to measure as one goes along. In the process, the proportions becomes the important thing, the way rythym is created in the juxtaposition of things, the accidents of things overlapping and lining up and so one. What I am enjoying in making the work and discovering is that the form and the concepts are interrelated … making, thinking, doing are coexisting and becoming an object.

August 2011