Spinning Tops

This work subverts the notion of playfulness and pleasure with the addition of misplaced elements, like saw blades, to question the idealism of play as innocent, educational and harmless.

This series of objects and installations explores the idealism of childhood and play, the tension between fantasy and risk as it plays out in metaphors of balance, slippery slopes and spinning tops. Driving this inquiry are converging interests from the clash of cherished ideals with reviled truths and a relentless desire for their balance. I’m interested in the power of domestic objects to fix, organize and soothe the subtleties and complexities in the everyday loop of relationships. Domestic objects act as intimate witnesses to the tightrope walk among the bittersweet vulnerability of being. Rooted in clay’s invariable association with the delicate, the work explores similar notions of preciousness. This choice of material also stems from the unique ability of clay to imitate other materials as well as archive development through repetition of mark making and transformation. In my process, the clay components are either thrown and altered yielding to imaginary textures and forms; or slab built highlighting sharp, definite lines. Wood, metal and the occasional found object layer the work further with punctuations of stability and representation. The coloured pod-shaped elements pile up and balance precariously against the white angular forms that impose a sense of familiar structure. Floating shelves with numerous, useless support legs balance rolling shapes of unglazed porcelain presenting a tipping sense, playing with the coloured elements, mining possibility.

Exhibition History

Are We There Yet? (group exhibition), Galerie Les Territoires, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. February 2009.