Dissolution Statement
This ephemeral clay installation addresses the intrinsic fragility of life, and ever-increasing loss of biodiversity. Clay representations of animals locally in decline change and deteriorate from dripping water, leaving them cratered, dissolving, cracking, and, ultimately, falling apart ~ as a symbol of the fragility of life, the vulnerability of these species, and biodiversity on a whole ~ loss that is taking place directly due to human actions and inactions.
The sculptures created for this installation are representations of animals declining in the state of New Mexico or those that have been extirpated from the state altogether: Black-footed ferrets, Gunnison’s and Black-tailed prairie dogs, Jaguars, White-sided jackrabbits, Swift foxes, Mexican wolves, and Northern Aplomado falcons; all sculpted approximately to scale. During this installation, these finely detailed animal sculptures break down before one's eyes as water drips from the ceiling, with light and shadow creating a moody, pensive ambience, and the quiet, continuous dripping sound evoking a cave, a space to mull over things, to sit down, experience, and reflect. The sand basins and animal groupings are starkly separated, a metaphor for severe habitat fragmentation, where literal islands of habitat are what we have reserved, in between immense swaths of agricultural land and urban development. Unfired, particularly wet clay holds a quality of aliveness, warm and organic, which contrasts with the ghostly austerity of the white sand and the coldness of gallery walls. Choosing to bring this work into a very human environment, into a gallery and manufacturing the dissolution of the work, is a reference to the human role in the on-going loss of individuals, and species on a whole. We are the direct cause of ecosystem stress and species loss in the modern world. We have innovated ourselves into a considerable threat by means of habitat destruction, introduction of invasive species, exploitation, and out-right extermination.
Although I am sculpting animals locally at stake, this work also serves as a metaphor for the hundreds of thousands of other species being lost due to human actions and influences, in all places. The administered degradation of clay animal sculptures addresses the impermanence of life; even in the best of circumstances, all things slowly pass away; some slow and elegantly, but others quick and clumsily. With the water droplets falling upon these sculptures, the changes can be quite abrupt and abrasive, craters forming in the clay, as if bullet holes, the face melting away causing deformation at times akin to a monster of sorts, then a head or limbs falling off, until it is no longer a beautiful object, becoming instead a broken skeleton of a sculpture. While this work can simply be perceived as a representation of transience and the ephemerality of life, I endeavor to bring to light something much more drastic. The existing wave of mass extinction is said to be 1,000-10,000 times greater than the natural extinction rate. Unlike mass extinctions of geological history, these new extinctions are directly caused by us. Even though my work has always surfaced from a place of concern with our present relationship to the rest of life, it never carried through such a distinct, unadorned message; Life is passing away unnaturally… and so, too, will the art I create.
Significantly more time was spent creating a likeness and sculpting these animal forms, compared to the time they remain completely intact. And it is not without a sense of loss on my own part seeing these sculptures, all the time and energy, disappear, but it also is a truly transformative experience to be so invested in work that is ephemeral. With this body of work the art, in a way, is the change that takes place, the process unfolding, a small representation of a much larger tragedy occurring locally and globally. Having the clay sculptures deliberately degrade in a gallery atmosphere turns the audience into a spectator of on-going loss, a very personal loss, hours of dedication, a work of art turning backwards, but of course the real tragedy is the actual, real loss of life I am referring to.
My thesis work has been an act of giving reverence and recognition to the many lives that are vanishing, to bring to light the darkness, the dark side of our actions, the death that will come to all things, but should not be coming so steadily and so invasively to so many other non-human lives. Through this disintegrating clay gesture, I endeavor to intone a spirit of empathy and relation with the natural world and each other, while bringing awareness to the on-going loss.
The sculptures created for this installation are representations of animals declining in the state of New Mexico or those that have been extirpated from the state altogether: Black-footed ferrets, Gunnison’s and Black-tailed prairie dogs, Jaguars, White-sided jackrabbits, Swift foxes, Mexican wolves, and Northern Aplomado falcons; all sculpted approximately to scale. During this installation, these finely detailed animal sculptures break down before one's eyes as water drips from the ceiling, with light and shadow creating a moody, pensive ambience, and the quiet, continuous dripping sound evoking a cave, a space to mull over things, to sit down, experience, and reflect. The sand basins and animal groupings are starkly separated, a metaphor for severe habitat fragmentation, where literal islands of habitat are what we have reserved, in between immense swaths of agricultural land and urban development. Unfired, particularly wet clay holds a quality of aliveness, warm and organic, which contrasts with the ghostly austerity of the white sand and the coldness of gallery walls. Choosing to bring this work into a very human environment, into a gallery and manufacturing the dissolution of the work, is a reference to the human role in the on-going loss of individuals, and species on a whole. We are the direct cause of ecosystem stress and species loss in the modern world. We have innovated ourselves into a considerable threat by means of habitat destruction, introduction of invasive species, exploitation, and out-right extermination.
Although I am sculpting animals locally at stake, this work also serves as a metaphor for the hundreds of thousands of other species being lost due to human actions and influences, in all places. The administered degradation of clay animal sculptures addresses the impermanence of life; even in the best of circumstances, all things slowly pass away; some slow and elegantly, but others quick and clumsily. With the water droplets falling upon these sculptures, the changes can be quite abrupt and abrasive, craters forming in the clay, as if bullet holes, the face melting away causing deformation at times akin to a monster of sorts, then a head or limbs falling off, until it is no longer a beautiful object, becoming instead a broken skeleton of a sculpture. While this work can simply be perceived as a representation of transience and the ephemerality of life, I endeavor to bring to light something much more drastic. The existing wave of mass extinction is said to be 1,000-10,000 times greater than the natural extinction rate. Unlike mass extinctions of geological history, these new extinctions are directly caused by us. Even though my work has always surfaced from a place of concern with our present relationship to the rest of life, it never carried through such a distinct, unadorned message; Life is passing away unnaturally… and so, too, will the art I create.
Significantly more time was spent creating a likeness and sculpting these animal forms, compared to the time they remain completely intact. And it is not without a sense of loss on my own part seeing these sculptures, all the time and energy, disappear, but it also is a truly transformative experience to be so invested in work that is ephemeral. With this body of work the art, in a way, is the change that takes place, the process unfolding, a small representation of a much larger tragedy occurring locally and globally. Having the clay sculptures deliberately degrade in a gallery atmosphere turns the audience into a spectator of on-going loss, a very personal loss, hours of dedication, a work of art turning backwards, but of course the real tragedy is the actual, real loss of life I am referring to.
My thesis work has been an act of giving reverence and recognition to the many lives that are vanishing, to bring to light the darkness, the dark side of our actions, the death that will come to all things, but should not be coming so steadily and so invasively to so many other non-human lives. Through this disintegrating clay gesture, I endeavor to intone a spirit of empathy and relation with the natural world and each other, while bringing awareness to the on-going loss.
