Statement
The Diorama Tragedy of 1984: Tracing the Origins of the Bilds.
When it came to playing with toys I was more of a curator than a kid. Durable
plastic He-man figures with solid muscular limbs were not things to be handled
roughly or dirtied, rather, they were to be carefully collected, arranged, and
admired for the small sculptures that they were. So it was that as a new Cub
Scout I was excited for the assignment to bring a diorama to the pack meeting.
I ambitiously stacked every treasured agate and fossil from my rock collection
onto a shoebox lid in a precariously balanced ship form. Glue was unthinkable.
Instead I agonized over the consequence of re-stacking the sculpture several
times during its transportation from my bedroom to the school gym. Embarrassment
joined frustration, not only as I rebuilt the entropic piece in front of parents
and peers, but also as I was introduced to a new definition:
diorama (def.) - a meticulously crafted model scene conceived of and constructed
to a greater degree by the parents of nine-year-old boys.
My flustered composure deteriorated into tears when I was called up for a creativity
award and, picking-up the shoebox lid, the stones slumped one final time under
everyone’s gaze.
Until now the tragedy had been therapeutically suppressed. Only as my artwork
has again taken the form of stacked collections has the moment resurfaced to
claim its status as the genesis of my current artistic practice.
I present 3-dimensional collections in ways that volunteer themselves to be included
in a 2-dimensional legacy. The pieces are titled Bilds, claiming both ‘picture’ in
German and the sculptural connotation, ‘build’.
Reducing my interventions to organization respects the possibility of the objects’ transformation
into the language of painting while bluntly retaining their original sculptural
and functional identities.
|
