Improbable Spring. 2008.
Dimensions variable.
Gouache, archival inkjet prints, beeswax on mulberry paper; "found" wallpaper, wood, plastic, audio components.
This installation was a response to my father's death, the images of robins inspired by a game we played each spring as to who would spot the first bird of the season. The robin, historically associated with rebirth, also relates -- through juxtaposition -- to temporality, loss, and memory. I hand-wrote texts onto the walls of the gallery examining aspects of memory and loss, while panels of "found" floral wallpaper sheets carried associations to spring, home, and the family. The walls were activated by light moving through the cut-out shapes in the wallpaper to form silhouettes of the birds upon their surfaces -- present and, yet, intangible.
Dimensions variable.
Gouache, archival inkjet prints, beeswax on mulberry paper; "found" wallpaper, wood, plastic, audio components.
This installation was a response to my father's death, the images of robins inspired by a game we played each spring as to who would spot the first bird of the season. The robin, historically associated with rebirth, also relates -- through juxtaposition -- to temporality, loss, and memory. I hand-wrote texts onto the walls of the gallery examining aspects of memory and loss, while panels of "found" floral wallpaper sheets carried associations to spring, home, and the family. The walls were activated by light moving through the cut-out shapes in the wallpaper to form silhouettes of the birds upon their surfaces -- present and, yet, intangible.
Brightly painted robins superimposed upon digital prints of nests, trees, bird watchers, houses, people on stilts, and gymnasts were layered in the gallery windows to create a "landscape" of birds. The gymnasts, their images tightly cropped and arms outstretched, seem as if they are trying to fly, while the bird watchers, looking up to the clouds, almost always miss the birds. The people on stilts never touch the ground, trying to defy the weight of their bodies. An audio of robin calls intermittently disrupted the silence of the gallery.
