Grafting: studies in material
My fascination with nature stems from the time in my past when I worked in nurseries that sold flowers, shrubs, and trees. The process of selling organic matter, solely as an aesthetic feature to landscape architecture, brought me to question in my practice, what is artificial and what is true to nature. I use the horticultural method of grafting as a vehicle to bring together objects and people; with focus on the moment of material connection and a dialogue of said material and their ideas that are relating to or opposing one another. Grafting was first introduced to my practice after an in-depth study of the Kanzan (Prunus Serrulata) wood that I had been working with in 2014. A Kanzan is a flowering cherry tree native to Eastern Asia, that solely for aesthetic reasons, is grafted to an American native rootstock to survive in my world zone.
In my sculptures, my intention is to breathe new life into decaying organic matter via my own methods of grafting, and to juxtapose relationships of materials such as metals, plastics, concrete, plaster, and raw trees or wood. I draw attention to areas of our environment where nature and society intersect. One clear example of this intersection can be seen literally, in a tree that has grown through a cyclone fence to adapt to a space that humans have altered. My intention is to discover whether humankind and nature co-exist materially, in these subtle moments of intersection.