Groundless I

2015

MDF fiberboard, acrylic carvings, acrylic paint, 54’ x 10’ x 5”

Hyde Gallery
Memphis, TN

Groundless is about transcendence above all boundaries into a space of one’s own from where one creates a new reality. It represents an identity that evolves from a hybrid of identities, cultures, and ideologies, but transcends them, defying all categorizations.

Clouds drift across the sky, soaring above, universal, yet in a space of their own between the skies and the ground. Just like the carvings used in this project, they are solid yet ephemeral. Both dissolve the solidity of the material surface representing the spiritual or transient. Both blur boundaries and exist in between spaces. In the spectrum of colors and shapes they represent diversity in harmony. The geometric patterns are designed from a circle that is the symbol of unity. The multiple divisions of the circle create the variety of designs representing multiplicity within unity, and infinity in their continuous repetition. This juxtaposition of patterns with clouds also exposes the commonalities in the apparent differences and the contradictions within each structure.

Whether it is competing ideologies or paradoxical identities, there is no singular categorization or meaning. This leaves the space in between, the liminal space at the interstices of cultures, ideologies, and identities, as a place of transcendence from where countless realities are possible and multiple shifting perspectives evident. From this position, one can create new narratives of a shared identity.

Life is a kaleidoscopic and elusive blend of variables. There is no one fixed identity, meaning, or reality but impermanence the only unchanging reality. Groundless depicts a kaleidoscopic sunset composed of a blend of organic and geometric shapes and patterns. As one moves across the room, the work can be viewed from multiple shifting perspectives that are all part of the larger whole. 

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