FROZEN MOSS + OTHER SMALL TRANSFIGURATIONS
2013
Steel, resin, moss, clock pendulum bob, glass
40 x 24 x 24 in
2013-2015
31 x 42 x 4.5 in
Resin, silver nitrate, moss, pigment, pewter
2014
Resin, moss, steel, silver nitrate, pigment, pewter
63 x 29 x 14 in
2015
Resin, moss, pigment, Mosin-Nagant M44 bayonet
22 x 22 x 2 in
2013
Resin, silver nitrate
16 x 7.5 x 1.25 in
March 2014
July 2013
The dripping resin works deal with one of the aims of traditional casting, which is freezing a form that is seen as weak in a permanent and robust material, therefore, aiming for the ideas inherent in the original work to last forever and increase the opportunity for the work to spread its message. This idea is executed with objects relating to location, environment and the body through moss, food, cast body parts and a light bulb.
These works question the fallacy of the stable and immortal art object. The fragile reindeer moss, farmed in Norway, is most commonly used in table decorations or incorporated into ornamental plant arrangements. Here the moss is mixed with poisonous silver nitrate used in traditional photography and polyester resin. The moss reacts with the silver nitrate and slowly blackens, giving an artificial appearance of decay. The resulting colour is a mottled camouflage effect which reinforces the idea of a material in-between abstraction and figuration. This military/body aspect is also reflected in the bayonet, which props apart two resin forms making an isosceles triangle. The decay effect is highlighted by the dripping form that comes from the mold. The molds were made from triangular wax blocks that had melted in the hot sunshine of the New York Summer of 2013. The mold was created while the wax was in its dripping state, halfway between solid and liquid.
Many of the works feature pewter objects. Pewter was the staple material in medieval times for plates and cups, also used as a cheap metal for things in religious ceremonies in ‘common’ churches. The objects were chosen to echo the act of change either symbolically, such as the apple, bodily, cast nipples, or conceptually, the modern twist of an inert, heavy light bulb in the same vein as Jasper John’s cast lightbulbs and torches.
In Hole, toxic silver nitrate traditionally used in photography is frozen in resin. The work is transparent when initially de-molded and blackens slowly over months. The resulting pattern and eventually black and brown patina is created by the reaction of the silver nitrate to sunlight. This patina is dependent on where it is placed in relation to a light source and for how long.