In March 2019
I am building a mountain of paper at Elder Gallery of Contemporary Art in Charlotte, NC. The idea behind this is to create an experience that evokes the outdoor environment that inspires us. As a painter, my work is about the intersection of the outdoor experience and art. Because painting is inherently a two dimensional experience, this installation is a way to create a more immersive experience for viewers.
This installation has two parts, a paper mountain and a video projection of skies.
For the Paper Mountain, I am folding over 1,000 paper cranes that will be suspended from the ceiling. The flock of birds will form a mountain in the Elder Gallery space. The paper used is a lightweight material, and I hope that by layering the experience of such a large formation with a delicate material, this will help convey the fragility of the environment.
The second part of this exhibit is the Sky Project.
For this, I am crowdsourcing photos of the sky from all over the world, and projecting them on one of the gallery walls. The sky images will form a large grid that will gradually change as new images are added. This project is a reaction to the outdoor experience as filtered through our phones. We take photos of everywhere we go and everything we do and share them on social platforms such as Instagram. Many people’s experience of the outdoors is entirely based on what is Instagrammable. How do we continue to have unmediated experiences in nature with the constant distraction of telephones in our lives?
