Statement 1 Edited

1. Edited Version

A rainbow appears under special conditions: it has to be sunny, it has to be raining, and someone has to observe it. Sunlight refracts and reflects inside each water droplet altering the angles of the light passing through it. The position of the drops in the air in relation to the observer determines their color in the spectrum. Without a seeing eye the rainbow does not exist because it is dependent on the perspective of the observer.
The same is also true of seeing, for example, a tree. Something is there. Scientists say atoms and molecules, but we know that they are mostly empty space so the solidity we perceive is just a trick of perception. Although more complex physics are involved, the way we perceive a tree is similar to the way we perceive a rainbow, and because of how it is constructed in our mind, is just as illusive.
Physicists tell us that what we consider to be the building blocks of reality, namely atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons, etc, are actually nothing more than quantum mechanical waves. The only thing we are ever really dealing with is our own human constructs. We call this reality, and it certainly seems that way, but there is nonetheless an illusive rainbow-like quality to all of what we know.
And yet, in spite of this, knowing that everything is essentially nothing, here we are, living our lives, experiencing all the color, tone, texture, emotion, and continuity of the world as a synthesized whole. What exists without thinking is only half the story: always incomplete and fragmentary. Only one part of reality is present in what we perceive – we experience the other part.
My work is an effort to bridge this opposition, a search for the unity between thought and the world, between ideal and physical reality. This is expressed through the use of various structures, both formal and conceptual. Each structure has a logic specific to the project which is often undercut by an organic element. Many of my works do not exist as completed objects, but instead take place over time, and have an element of inevitability to them - they grow, break, decay, or collapse. I often choose materials and objects for their ingrained cultural symbolism as a way to play with preconceived notions about the threshold between nature and culture, and ideas about the individual in relation to the universe.