/ IMAGE GALLERY /
/ ABOUT THE EXHIBIT /
Statement by Greg Stewart:
I am often grateful when stumbling onto something that is “out of place” in the world. I find it is these situations that work to stir imaginative acts, create potential for new possibilities, and generate reflective thinking; all acts of mobility. It is also in this way that sculpture begins to produce thoughts and to affect the body. It is in this way that I position my work.
The impetus for these projects stems from my interest in geography, more specifically, human geography; the study of how we situate, or arrange ourselves in the world. I’m also interested in aspects of mobility: mobility as a physical operation, metaphorical gesture, and as a spark for things that drive our limitless imaginations. There is also a presence of mobility in language that I am interested in: how narrative language creates series of events, how time and space unfolds through narrative and can create the most unlikely of imaginary circumstances.
I have always drawn inspiration from the notion that our world does not begin here or end there, but is always going on. And for the same reason, environments are never complete but are continually under construction. With this in mind, my work is often left seemingly unfinished. Oftentimes it may still be in the act of construction, or dislodging itself from its current category. Sometimes a system is included that invites further attachments, including my own body.
My work imagines a reality constructed out of a necessity to move from place to place. It also looks at how we might build to accommodate a portable lifestyle. Most recently I have been involved in building small mobile shelters that are often equipped with things that may seem contrary to our notions of being able to move easily. Portions of a library, a cooking station, vegetable gardens, fruit trees growing on roof tops, an outhouse. One particular project has the entirety of one’s possessions forming the outside walls of a shelter, causing an actual envelopment by all that is owned. Other projects include ideas that create imaginary species of animals; crossovers, hybrids, or strange attachments with inanimate objects. For example, the project Tools for an Upright Animal imagines a mutation of deer-like species that can grow fruit from its own flesh becoming both herd and migrating orchard at once.
I am also interested in the sense of play in the work. This sense of play operates in the potential for the object to be manipulated (mobilized), and in the use of color. The most direct association for the use of color is linked to children’s toys. Related to the use of color to stimulate children and encourage the manipulation of toys, there is a similar strategy in this work. Despite a conceptual edge, and the inherent awkwardness of the work, color makes the work accessible, approachable and playful. Using the term ‘play’, in less obvious sense of the word, reveals another interesting link. Play, defined as a space in which something can move, reinforces the spatial quality of the concept and the inherent nature of sculpture.