2017, 112" x 98" x 112", glass, wood, metal, paint, adhesive, photo credit: Rich Maciejewski

InEarth combines the genres of still life and landscape to juxtapose the current age with ages past. Atop InEarth is a fecund landscape depicting early diverging flora including a variety of pteridophytes and cycadophyta as well as extinct flora such as sphenophyllum (alive from the Devonian to Triassic periods) and calamites (alive in Carboniferous period). The tallest plant, a cycad, pierces the table and descends to the floor, transforming into a Doric column.
The bottom anchors a still life composition, which includes (glass) cards, bottles, musical instruments, coins, books, bricks, and a partial lowering device for caskets.
InEarth continues research begun at the Department of Paleobiology and Department of Botany at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC during a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. The work ensued explores the age of the Anthropocene, known as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

2017, 112" x 98" x 112", glass, wood, metal, paint, adhesive, photo credit: Rich Maciejewski

2017, 112" x 98" x 112", glass, wood, metal, paint, adhesive, photo credit: Rich Maciejewski

2017, 112" x 98" x 112", glass, wood, metal, paint, adhesive, photo credit: Rich Maciejewski

2017, 112" x 98" x 112", glass, wood, metal, paint, adhesive, photo credit: Rich Maciejewski

InEarth on view during Ruptures, an exhibition at the Des Moines Art Center

2017, 120" x 108" x 16", One Portrait of One Woman (Hartley, 1916), glass, metal, paint, adhesive, permanent collection of the Weisman Art Museum, photo credit: Weisman Art Museum

One Portrait of One Man pays homage to Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) by encapsulating his painting One Portrait of One Woman (1916) within an ephemeral domestic setting. The installation presents a glass cabinet as Hartley’s allegorical body, flanked by glass wallpaper depicting a stylized aerial view of the border between two enemy trenches which no one dared cross, known during WWI as No Man’s Land. Representations of artifacts from Hartley and Stein’s lives are hidden within the glass cabinet with significant visual entry points located at chest and pelvis areas. Continuing the portraiture tradition, One Portrait of One Man offers a rumination on presence and absence.

Marsden Hartley, one of America’s most preeminent 20th century modernists created One Portrait of One Woman (1916) as a symbolic portrait of his cherished friend and mentor, Gertrude Stein (1874-1946). Stein remains a deeply influential avant-garde author and collector whose Rue de Fleurus salon became a fulcrum of the artistic community during the first half of the 20th century. She, in turn, wrote a word portrait of Hartley.

One Portrait of One Man was commissioned by Weisman Art Museum and partially funded by the National Endowment of the Arts. Research was supported by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

photo credit: Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota

2017, 120" x 108" x 16", One Portrait of One Woman (Hartley, 1916), glass, metal, paint, adhesive, permanent collection of the Weisman Art Museum, photo credit: Weisman Art Museum

2017, 120" x 108" x 16", One Portrait of One Woman (Hartley, 1916), glass, metal, paint, adhesive, permanent collection of the Weisman Art Museum, photo credit: Weisman Art Museum

2015, 96” x 41” x 20.25”, wood, glass, ash, gold, brass, mirror, sugar, salt, adhesive, permanent collection, Chipstone Foundation, photo credit: Jim Wildeman

Secretary with Chipmunk reincarnates an 18th century Boston Bombe desk into a work of art that illuminates ways in which we learn. It explores the origins of an individual’s knowledge by focusing on both concrete and intangible ways that we understand our individual worlds. To create Secretary with Chipmunk, all counterfeit components were removed, some were burnt, and the ash incorporated into the hand-sculpted glass composition. The work transforms the capital and the feet into a three dimensional grotto and the doors, fall board, and interior depict the five senses through the use of human anatomical illustrations as symbolic cultural objects.
The title, Secretary with Chipmunk, pays homage to the founders of the Chipstone Foundation, Polly and Stanley Stone, whose term of endearment inspired the foundation's name. The work was commissioned by Chipstone Foundation and is on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

2015, 96” x 41” x 20.25”, wood, glass, ash, gold, brass, mirror, sugar, salt, adhesive, permanent collection, Chipstone Foundation, photo credit: Jim Wildeman

Both the fall board and prospect door of the Bombe secretary were fakes enabling modification. The fall board incorporates symbols of touch; the prospect door represents taste.

2015, 96” x 41” x 20.25”, wood, glass, ash, gold, brass, mirror, sugar, salt, adhesive, permanent collection, Chipstone Foundation, photo credit: Jim Wildeman

Doors opened to reveal the olfactory chamber.

2015, 96” x 41” x 20.25”, wood, glass, ash, gold, brass, mirror, sugar, salt, adhesive, permanent collection, Chipstone Foundation, photo credit: Jim Wildeman

Capital detail incorporates shells, rocks, flowers, and a Rococo cartouche.

2013, 25’ x 10’ x 6’, glass, wood, paint, adhesive, site specific installation for the Moses Myers House, permanent collection of Chrysler Museum of Art, VA, photo credit: Chrysler Museum of Art

In Adeline’s Portal, an unfinished, unclaimed passageway in the Moses Myer’s House of the Chrysler Museum of Art is transformed with replicas of authentic and adopted heirlooms from the family collection. This site-specific installation presents domestic objects as surrogates for stories and mortals forgotten, alluding to the idiom, “Skeletons in the Closet.”

The portal is located within the bedroom of Adeline, Moses Myers’ daughter who remained at home with her parents, accepting the role of hostess and house manager until her death in 1832. No portraits of Adeline exist; the only remaining mark of Adeline’s hand is a sampler she finished at age 7, on view above the fireplace mantel. An large scale rendition of the sampler can be found suspended within Adeline's Portal, connecting past and present.

2013, 25’ x 10’ x 6’, glass, wood, paint, adhesive, site specific installation for the Moses Myers House, permanent collection of Chrysler Museum of Art, VA, photo credit: Chrysler Museum of Art

Viewers open the doors to the right of the fireplace, enabling each visitor to experience the portal independently

2013, 25’ x 10’ x 6’, glass, wood, paint, adhesive, site specific installation for the Moses Myers House, permanent collection of Chrysler Museum of Art, VA, photo credit: Chrysler Museum of Art

2013, 25’ x 10’ x 6’, glass, wood, paint, adhesive, site specific installation for the Moses Myers House, permanent collection of Chrysler Museum of Art, VA, photo credit: Chrysler Museum of Art

location of Adeline's Portal, a site specific installation, permanent collection of the Chrysler Museum of Art

The Moses Myers House and its collection an exceptional example of the late Federal period and the life of the Myers family. Moses Myers, an early American entrepreneur and leading citizen, built the house to accommodate his growing family and social prominence. The home passed down through several generations of the family to Norfolk mayor Barton Myers, who carried out early architectural restoration in 1892.

The Moses Myers House was one of the first brick homes built in Norfolk after the Revolutionary War, which saw most of the town leveled by British bombardment and subsequent fire. The home contains a remarkable number of furnishings original to the family.

For more information:

http://www.chrysler.org/about-the-museum/historic-houses/the-moses-myers-house/adelines-portal/

2018, 89” x 54” x 57”, glass, cement, metal, adhesive, private collection, photo credit: Rich Maciejewski

After Bar combines cultural objects with ancient flora, juxtaposing artifacts from a proto-political space - the tavern, with examples of early diverging plants that have survived multiple mass extinctions. The incorporation of prehistoric flora alludes to the duality of existence: impermanence of the present and the persistence of life. Bottles, coasters and drinking vessels are strewn across several tiers that are bisected by a Doric column, an emblem of canonical order that bridges architecture and the human posture. After Bar is pierced by a cycad, shading the anthropogenic residue beneath.

Culture was often defined in taverns, which were usually the first public building constructed in towns and a sanctioned center for public assembly. The role of tavern keeper was often preparatory for political careers, cementing a position of power within society.

2018, 89” x 54” x 57”, glass, cement, metal, adhesive, private collection, photo credit: Rich Maciejewski

2018, 89” x 54” x 57”, glass, cement, metal, adhesive, private collection, photo credit: Rich Maciejewski

2018, 89” x 54” x 57”, glass, cement, metal, adhesive, private collection, photo credit: Rich Maciejewski

2018, 89” x 54” x 57”, glass, cement, metal, adhesive, private collection, photo credit: Rich Maciejewski

2018, 89” x 54” x 57”, glass, cement, metal, adhesive, private collection, photo credit: Rich Maciejewski

2014, time-lapse of 48 hours, 27 min running time which is continuously looped, collection of the Corning Museum of Glass

Windfall, a collaborative video created with Keith Heyward and Julia Liu, is a work of time lapse photography that features a gazing ball situated on Lake Clark, Alaska. Combining still life and landscape, the work investigates our connection and disconnection with nature and our conception of wilderness. The vessel stands as our surrogate, acting as a lens through which we see the world, reflected in the surfaces of the material, whose form and density buckle and twist the landscape, alluding to the nature of perception.  Working en plein air directly informed the qualities of the still life composition, as light, weather, animals and insects collaborated in the final arrangement.

2014, 38" x 28", c-print mounted to aluminum with gloss laminate, edition of 3

Combining portraiture, still life, and landscape, Alone and the Wilderness investigates our connection and disconnection with nature and our conception of wilderness. The divide between civilization and nature at times feels complete, as disconnection from the natural world is compensated by obsessive consumerism.The vessels stand as our surrogates, reflecting and refracting the environment, alluding to the nature of perception.  

Alone and the Wilderness explores the threshold of landscape, simultaneously situating compositions inside and outside. The forest floor becomes our carpet, the trees, our curtains, the water, our mirror. Working en plein air directly informed the qualities of the still life composition, as light, weather, animals and insects collaborated in the final arrangement. Natural disintegration is counteracted with an enduring photographic lens.

Alone and the Wilderness was initiated at the Chulitna Lodge Wilderness Retreat on Lake Clark, Alaska in the summer of 2014. The title of the work pays homage to Richard Proenneke, a wilderness steward who lived on the nearby Twin Lakes for over 30 years, and whose writing and documentaries were a source of inspiration.

2014, 58" x 34.5", c-print mounted to aluminum with gloss laminate

2014, 55" x 43.5", c-print mounted to aluminum with gloss laminate, edition of 3

2014, 36" x 25", c-print mounted to aluminum with gloss laminate, edition of 3

2013, 111" x 300" x 22", glass, wood, paint, adhesive, permanent collection of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, photo credit: Margaret Fox

“I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china.”-Oscar Wilde

Sideboard with Blue China combines refrains of human predation with aspects of the human body, depicting things such as wheat, corn, birds, and fish paired with fragments of human anatomy such as feet, hands, heart, intestine, and genitalia.
Sideboard with Blue China examines themes of growth and decay, desire and consumption, and the literal embodiment of us in our objects. The piece was inspired by two historic sideboards: one by Bulkley and Herter, exhibited at the New York City Crystal Palace in 1853 and the other from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, attributed to an undetermined east coast city from same time frame.

2013, 111" x 300" x 22", glass, wood, paint, adhesive, permanent collection of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, photo credit: Eva Heyd

Detail of male and female plaques

2013, 111" x 300" x 22", glass, wood, paint, adhesive, permanent collection of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, photo credit: Margaret Fox

2013, 111" x 300" x 22", glass, wood, paint, adhesive, permanent collection of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, photo credit: Margaret Fox

Sideboard with Blue China installed in the Astor ballroom during Precarious Possessions, a solo exhibition at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, photo credit: John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art

2015, 10” x 13” x 9”, cast iron with rust patina, photo credit: John Michael Kohler Arts Center/ Kohler Co.

In Distill, small cardboard boxes holding ancient flora such as conifer, lichen, and ferns were arranged with miniature furniture and domestic objects to create small-scale dioramas, forcing the relationship between prehistoric and current geological eras. The uncanny environ was created when the casting process produced replicas and destroyed the landscapes, translating vignettes into fossilized depictions of the Anthropocene era.

2015, cast iron with plating and rust patina, wood, silver, permanent collection, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, photo credit: John Michael Kohler Arts Center/ Kohler Co.

2015, 9" x 13" x 4.5", brass, photo credit: John Michael Kohler Arts Center/ Kohler Co.

2015, 7" x 12" x 6", cast iron, chrome, rust, enamel, photo credit: John Michael Kohler Arts Center/ Kohler Co.

2015, 16" x 11" x 8", cast iron, chrome, rust, photo credit: John Michael Kohler Arts Center/ Kohler Co.

2015, 92" x 57" x 192", glass, adhesive, wood, paint

Laid (Time-) Table with Cycads, combines the genres of still life and landscape to juxtapose the current age with ages past. Atop Laid (Time-) Table with Cycads is a still life composition that includes historic symbolic objects referring to the splendor and excess of the Anthropocene and the stratigraphic layer humanity will leave on Earth. Drawings, books, chalices, food, rope, and a viola can be found scattered among crumpled tablecloths and bits of other human detritus. 

Beneath the table, a phantasmagoric paleo-landscape unfolds, alluding to Deep Time. Extinct flora including Sphenophyllum (alive from the Devonian to Triassic periods) and Barinophyton (alive from the Devonian to the Carboniferous periods) mingle with early diverging flora such as ferns, mosses, cycads, and gingkos. Early diverging flora are considered to be ancient plants, the descendents looking strikingly similar to their ancestors despite the survival of multiple mass extinctions in the Earth’s history. At three locations in the composition, cycads pierce through the table offering a connection between worlds and alluding to the constancy of life.

2015, 92" x 57" x 192", glass, adhesive, wood, paint

2015, 92" x 57" x 192", glass, adhesive, wood, paint

2014, crib- 45” x 54” x 30”, cradle-20” x 70” x 32, glass, adhesive, photo credit: John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art

For many, the crib is the piece of furniture from which we first grasp the world; in Margin for Error, the Crib sinks slowly into the floor. Cradle is modeled after a Shaker adult cradle, used for rocking the moribund. Margin for Error marks the interstice between birth and death.

Margin for Error installed in the Astor library during Precarious Possessions, a solo exhibition at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art 

2014, crib- 45” x 54” x 30”, glass, adhesive, photo credit: John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art

Margin for Error installed in the Astor library during Precarious Possessions, a solo exhibition at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art 

2014, 115" x 80" x 60", glass, adhesive, commissioned by the New Britain Museum American Art, photo credit: Gavin Ashworth

Aspects of (American) Life responds to Thomas Hart Benton’s The Arts of Life in America, an epic portrait of American culture. Completed in1932, Benton’s vocabulary is appropriated to interpret anew contemporary American culture, juxtaposing symbols of materiality with religiosity. Get Next to God, a sign concealed by a preacher’s head in the mural, anchors the top of the composition, its meaning lost in the absence of the figure. Aspects of (American) Life was commissioned by New Britain Museum of American Art.

2014, 115" x 80" x 60", glass, adhesive, commissioned by the New Britain Museum American Art, photo credit: Gavin Ashworth

2014, 115" x 80" x 60", glass, adhesive, commissioned by the New Britain Museum American Art, photo credit: Gavin Ashworth

2014, 115" x 80" x 60", glass, adhesive, commissioned by the New Britain Museum American Art, photo credit: Gavin Ashworth

2013, 49" x 62", lambda print on acrylic, edition of 3

2010, 30" x 58", lambda print on acrylic, edition of 3

2013, 35" x 27", lambda print on acrylic, edition of 3

2010, 19.5"  38.5", lambda print on acrylic, edition of 3

2016, 38" x 24" x 18", glass, wood, paint, adhesive, private collection

2014, right wall: 96" x 60" left wall 48" x 30", glass, adhesive, wood, paint, metal; site- specific composition of cycad, sea grape, kudzu and palmetto flora, private collection

2014, right wall: 96" x 60" left wall 48" x 30", glass, adhesive, wood, paint, metal; site- specific composition of cycad, sea grape, kudzu and palmetto flora, private collection

2016, 42" x 38" x 40", glass, wood, paint, adhesive

2014, 80" x 72" x 26", glass, wood, paint, adhesive, permanent collection of the Wichita Art Museum, photo credit: Jason Houge

2012, 60” x 30”x 25” glass, stone, glue, collection of the Jewish Museum (NY), photo credit: Robb Quinn

2013, 96" x 144" x 5", glass, adhesive, collection of the Ackerman Cancer Center, photo credit: Eva Heydova

2011, 65" x 78" x 41", glass, wood, paint, adhesive, commissioned by Norton Museum of Art, photo credit: Robb Quinn

One and Others is a composite portrait of the Norton Museum of Art, Richard Hone, and the artist. The composition includes objects that reference specific permanent collection paintings, as well as the pineapple plant in all stages of growth. The pineapple refers to an early Floridian settler, Richard Hone, who farmed the plant and is buried onsite at the museum. The composition rests on a stylized casket, scaled to the artist's dimensions.