Installation art

Termitaria

The following pictures of from the various Termitaria installs I have done in several galleries.

The above three images are from my second gallery install of my red Termitaria pieces. Originally these pieces were orange, but in the summer of 2015 I decided to sand them down and paint /dye them red. 

This Termitaria install was in 2017 at Kent State's Downtown gallery in Kent Ohio. I had less space to lay all of the pieces out so I offset some while simultaneously adding fewer pieces. I have found the less I think about placement the better off the overall flow of the piece is. If I think too hard on placement the overall composition seems less organic.

The above two pictures are from an install I did for the Rooms to Let show in Slavic Village (Cleveland Ohio) in the spring of 2016. Every year several homes which are slated to be demolished in Slavic village are handed over to groups of artists who can do with the houses as they please.

The above two pictures are from my first red Termitaria install. The flow of the piece was disjointed due to having to break up the space so viewers could navigate the gallery. This install was at Waterloo Arts gallery in Cleveland Ohio.

Video of Colony Install

Colony

Imagine walking down your average city street in America. Especially in an area hard hit by economic collapse. Storefronts lie vacant, the streets are barren, paint peels off weather worn walls, and signs which once advertised booming businesses rust and droop from caving in facades. Tired, the city sighs the sullen exhalation of years of neglect. On such streets, nature waits patiently, longing for the day of its verdant return. In broken sidewalks, sprouting up amidst the cracks, grass springs up in tufts of green spray. The roots of trees, with herculean effort, push up concrete slabs as if trying to free themselves of their shackles. Animals scurry at night, leery of headlights and the thunderous whir of spinning wheels on the tired pavement.

Now imagine, for a moment at least, that this gray world, sprouted forth from its own refuse, an organic landscape vibrant with color, texture, and alive in flowing form.  In windows, storefronts, across buckling walls, bursting out of floors and ceilings – a coral like mass of alien like life forms transforming space into scenes of beauty and grace. This is my vision. This is COLONY.

                The first in a series of unique organic looking installs that transform under-utilized and abandoned space into flowing organic looking sculptural landscapes. Like an invasive species out competing its rivals, these colonies will spread. Anywhere there is ruin, a Colony may take seed. So, as you walk, numbed by worry or transfixed by the soft light of technical gadgetry, please remember to take notice of the life around you – for in some forgotten recess or a crack in a crumbling wall, you may just stumble upon a new world. A world filled with strange life forms -- a colony that no other eyes have seen before. Now go forth and explore. 

 

The three pictures above show Colony in its entirety. In all, Colony took over four months to create and several days to install. Colony consists of thousands of individual pieces placed together to create an organic looking temporary site-specific install.

 

 

The following photos are of the inner ring of the Colony install. 

The materials used in this install are as follows: Various sizes of cardboard tubes, paint, dye, various salts, oatmeal, cotton swabs, spray styrofoam, art sand, various fabrics and yarns, talus, plaster, and egg cartons. 

Overwinter #1

Pictures of Overwinter #1.

Overwinter #1

Mixed Media

2009

3' x 3' at base. 6' tall.

In entomology, overwintering is the term used to describe how insects survive through the winter season. A lot of insects overwinter as adults, pupae, or eggs, hiding inside various types of man made structures, under tree bark, or beneath dead vegetation. Overwintering sites shield the insects from harsh conditions associated with winter or drought like conditions. An example of overwintering is the Monarch butterfly. Every winter a large portion of the Monarch butterfly population migrates to the Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve in the Mexican state of Michoacán.

Though not meant as a direct representation of the Monarch butterfly’s overwintering in the Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve , this piece was nonetheless inspire by this event.

Materials used:

4320 pieces of paper (dyed orange)

8640 sinkers

144 strands of mono‑filament line totaling 864 ft. of line

Input/Output

To date this piece has been shown in three seperate shows. Each showing of this piece has been slightly different with recent incarnations focusing on a more minimal approach which I hope, leads to a more focused and stronger piece.

Input/Output at Wall Eye gallery in Cleveland. www.walleyegallery.com/

Input/Output at Studio 2091. www.studio2091.com

Input/Output was an attempt by me to bring into the gallery what I was doing out in nature with my Mimesis Art Project. For those who do not know, the Mimesis Art Project is a collaborative art project which explores the relation between art and nature by creating temporary site specific installs. Since these installs are viewed in person by a small number of people, I wanted to replicate some of what we do by bringing the experience into the gallery setting. www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Mimesis-Art-Project-MAP/147303845329284

Input/Output consists of a hollowed out log, cardboard tubes, paint, dye, salt, oatmeal, cotton swabs, various fabrics, dyed paper, tissue paper, and in it's Wall Eye gallery configuration, wires, sand, and altered rocks.