The crummiest materials are employed in this work, yet it insists on formal purity; the process of creation is strictly governed as a means of randomizing the final product. I ask the viewer to uplift twist-ties to the realm of architecture and elevate them to the realm of beauty.
Reversals are staged between banality and beauty, synthetic and organic. These concepts are balanced in such a way that the viewer can oscillate between a preconceived utility of an object and, its new found physical state. With this new physicality I enable the viewer to make new concept formations and, associations regarding familiar objects.
The physical nature of this work consists of multiple transpositional networks divided by elements and processes: twist-ties networked in a canopy like formation, assorted neon drinking straws pinched together to form veins that branch out, red jumbo straws attached in the same manner to create larger arteries, and twisted neon tape wrapped with yarn. A dilating swarm of these synthetics become compounded into a seamless plexus of irregular patterns and tactility that palpably lends itself to that of organic foliage.
The structural integrity of the work is paramount. No outside adhesive devices are utilized. Its physical structure is transparent and self-contained with each network relying upon its self and one another. This codependence is utilized with their tangible attributions in mind.
The unquenchable thirst in our culture to consume is realized through the employment of amassments of components in this work. Matter with seemingly no interrelation is a reverberation of my personal perception as a living being; anxiety is an emotional reaction experienced when encountering clusters of misrelated material in living quarters, i.e. clutter. However outside, these discoveries generate a pleasurable aesthetic attraction to categorically disconnected objects (plastic grocery bags attached to tree branches) and reify the notion of psychical distinction making. Eviatar Zerubavel explored this through the literary work in The Fine Line, “Classification is an artificial process of concept formation rather than discovering clusters that already exist…In the real world, there are no divides separating one insular ‘thing’ from another. The introduction of closure into the real’ is a purely mental act” (p. 76).
This work is a physical tactile substance that is the manifestation of the classifications we project onto objects in the world around us. It is a sinister response to a cultural drive to organize according to object-hood and, accumulate and consume with an unquenchable thirst. Although this work employ textures, space, and color to draw us in, it never remains soley dependent upon the materials employed; they are simply utilized to support a restless attempt to exemplify a physic hierarchy we project upon objects in the world around us. It asks the viewer to empathize with seemingly crummy material; It asks you to be moved by the banal, to discover the beauty in clusters that already exist.
Miles Neidinger 2012