The Semaphore Series
Central to my sculpture is the notion of alternative languages. The form, surface, and history of my materials, I hope, are able to develop their own formal language and convey meaning both more concisely and more broadly than any verbal explication on my part.
The Semaphore series uses weathered wood from packing pallets to create wall-mounted geometric compositions. By cutting the wood into strips, I have distanced the colors and textures from their original object, the 1 × 4” board; in effect, the wood reads not as a found object but as a found surface. A precursor to the telegraph, semaphore is a system of communicating over long distances with flags. Based loosely around the visual motif of flags, the Semaphores embody my attempt to communicate through a more intuitive language, one more dependent on the viewer’s engagement than the artist’s dictation.
The Semaphore series uses weathered wood from packing pallets to create wall-mounted geometric compositions. By cutting the wood into strips, I have distanced the colors and textures from their original object, the 1 × 4” board; in effect, the wood reads not as a found object but as a found surface. A precursor to the telegraph, semaphore is a system of communicating over long distances with flags. Based loosely around the visual motif of flags, the Semaphores embody my attempt to communicate through a more intuitive language, one more dependent on the viewer’s engagement than the artist’s dictation.