Maintaining Dichotomies (Holding opposing thoughts)

Modest Common Art Gallery 2022

The installation explores material relationships and how they influence the way spaces are interpreted, lived, and felt. Drawing upon methods such as casting—where liquid materials like plaster are poured into molds to assume both structural roles and capture delicate surface textures—and earthwork, which involves shaping and manipulating soil or earth, the project investigates the interplay between form and substance. For instance, by pouring earth into geometric molds, the installation reveals how natural materials adapt to imposed shapes, highlighting the tension between organic growth and human design. These approaches invite viewers to notice the formal affordances of materials, such as the dual ability of plaster to record a soft-looking texture in an incredibly hard surface.

The work also addresses moments of compromise between the materials—moments when, for example, malleable soil yields to the rigid lines of a mold, resulting in a unique hybrid form that fuses fluid and orthogonal qualities.

As visitors move around the sculpture, they encounter a tapestry of tactile contrasts: the cool smoothness of cast surfaces, the roughness of exposed earth, and the soft interplay of light and shadow across these textures. In this way, the installation not only immortalizes the meeting points between organic and rectilinear forms, but also creates a sensory landscape that encourages reflection on how materials shape our perception and experience of space.