My work is concerned with embodying tensions.
Human beings relate to their own planet in different ways, fluctuating between concern and neglect, pleasure and indifference. They live in an infinite universe, but rarely think about it, and mostly focus on spaces and times they can relate to. Sometimes though, they leave this familiar perspective, and some even dedicate their life to understanding what is going on beyond the scope of the Earth and the scale of a few thousand years. Putting such perspective in our lives, political decisions and actions is important to me.
We are caught in different scales of time and space: it is both a thrilling and disquieting perspective, that I want to convey visually.
I make sculptures and installations that suggest what it would feel like to land on unknown planets or to witness the kinetic beauty of the Earth’s destruction.
The microcosm I am building is inhabited by landscapes, strange creatures and abstract compositions related to layered memories. It often suggests a micro-chaos – for the boundary between the two can become blurred, depending on the scale and issues through which we look at things and events. This is the very transition I am interested in.
I use a large palette of clays and minerals, and the firing is assigned a crucial role: it is expected to disrupt that which I have carefully constructed.
In building the pieces and using components which are likely to melt or warp, I try to orchestrate the upheavals that the firing can bring. Once the pieces are removed from the kiln, they are ground or carved, and sometimes I incorporate other media. I seek to enhance the way the components move and to create a sculpture or a series of sculptures that in turn provoke contradictory feelings and stimulate thought.