Habitat

This series is a direct response to nature, using a natural material, wood, and the natural process of growth and decay. The search for a form of expression that acknowledges cultural roots while achieving a certain universality or ‘internationalism’ has been a preoccupation of mine for some time. Using simple, natural materials I have directed my concern toward our growing separation from the world that surrounds us. I am attempting to create, through art, a situation in which a clear view of the world is made possible. Through the imposition of an artist’s will on the chosen materials, I see artistic creation as an intuitive, emotional process of exploration, exposing the potentialities of the materials themselves. The actual physical process of creating the art, rather than the finished product, is important. The process becomes a form of spiritual exploration.

The works are conceived and created with the aspiration that they will engage and participate in the larger forces of creation, growth, destruction and decay in nature.

Each time this work is exhibited it is completely dismantled and rebuilt. This rebuilding is, of course, as much a ritual of renewal and rebirth as it is a necessary activity, but it is also a manifestation of the notion of physical form as a provisional arrangement of parts in time and space. It is the process of gathering and arranging random bits and pieces of wood that affirms the unity and coherence of the whole. I often recycle the wood of these compositions to create new ones, for I define my art not in the absoluteness of any structure it generates but in the temporal arrangement of its parts. I have no problem with accidental occurrences nor do I believe that a work needs to last a long time. I think it is sufficient for a work to last only a moment. This series is in a perpetual state of flux much like our universe. I am perfectly content to see my work dismantled or destroyed in the endless cycle of creation and destruction in the urban environment. My arrangements in gallery spaces are, for simple practical reasons, dismantled and moved after the exhibition. My hope is to come to a comprehension, through my art, of the completeness of nature, and humankind’s place in nature. I believe that we all exist in a state of incompleteness and my work represents my impulse or urge to fill in that part that is missing.