Tool sculpture collection from 'Give or Take' exhibition
installation view
2017-2019
Notebook with line drawings in ink, acrylic rod, pine hanging hardware.
2019
Each line drawing is produced with an either continuous of segmented length of line equaling approximately 1 yard.
Altered yardstick, osb, whitewash finish, printed sticker with graphite and ink writing that describes the physical parameters of the work including measurements, weight and panel construction details.
2019
Altered tape measure hund from the ceiling and suspended 36 inches above the gallery floor
2017-2019
installation view.
L>R
cut and reconfigured yardstick, measuring longer than 36 in.
Two yardsticks cut and assembled to equal 1 meter in length.
36 square inches of blue tape.
Every marked interval from a commercial yardstick, removed and reassembled onto a wood panel with custom box.
Oil, oak, stainless steel
2019
It has been a long time since I've made a painting. It's been a long time since I've made anything that was traditionally two dimensional at all, and this work is no exception. With the desire to make a painting in mind, I decided to revisit my interest in the topic and history of the kilogram. The story of the kilogram was, until May of this year, unique, and beautifully metaphorical. The kilogram (as well as every other unit of measure in the metric system) was based on natural equivalents and made physical in the form of a platinum-iridium cylinder manufactured in France in 1879. Although several copies were subsequently made, the original Kilogram (aka the IPK [international Prototype of the Kilogram) has been the sole representation of the weight by which we know as the Kilogram. It was a measure that was defined by a thing. Not a measure of nature. Not a measure of the human body. A measure of a handmade object hundreds of years old, that despite best efforts, fluctuated in weight over time, the implications of which were taken in consideration as they happened, but seen through a historical, or artistic lense, this phenomenon was profound. As of May, 2019, the KG's mass has been replaced by an equation.
This painting is an ode to the IPK. A 39mm cylinder of precious metals that was a guiding tool for the scientific and industrial world, which now is relegated to history and probably a museum. An object of mass historical significance, sitting on a shelf.
I made this painting to represent (at 1:1 scale) the shining alloy cylinder, composed on a panel made with the proportions of the conversion from lb. to kg. (2.204:1). with the addition of the hardwood oak frame and stainless steel strips, the painting weighs exactly 1 kilogram (1000 grams as shown in the photo). This painting is both the depiction of a Kilogram as well as a functioning weight of that same measure.
Magritte's 'Ceci n'est Pas Une Pipe' made the point of depicting a thing while pointing out the state of the object itself, establishing that it was not the thing, but an image of the thing. My work here is both the depiction, AND the thing.
Steel pipe, altered and connected rulers, acrylic spirit level.
2017
individual spirit level vials, attached and laid over uneven ground.
2017
Acrylic, water, dye, hanging hardware
2017
Acrylic, water, dye, hanging hardware
2017
Acrylic, water, dye, hanging hardware
2017
Acrylic, water, dye, hanging hardware
2017
one yard worth of gradations from a commercial yardstick on a panel built from part of the yardstick remnants
2016
Gradation lines from 71 12in rulers
2017