dharma strasser maccoll

artist's statement

The spacial questions of cohabitation have always interested me: how individuals live so closely while adhering to their particular habits, and what tension and cohesion arise from this proximity. The question has become pronounced by a recent move from the city to semi-rural life, where the contrast between high-rise and meadow becomes ever sharper. I think of it as a migration, of sorts, and it has necessitated a new set of materials and a clearer understanding of the density of both our man made and natural world. My materials and methods are a result of constant experimentation in the studio and a conscious desire to combine the unexpected: paper with clay, feather with glue, thread with mylar. Labor is an important component, as the slow, intensive process of hand making the pieces is an opportunity to focus on small, intimate experiences often lost in our frenetic world. What emerges is a play between the multiplying, overlapping grouping of parts and the open spaces around them. The combining of pieces, while slowly executed, is always about parts moving together and finding their order in a wide-open space.

dharma strasser maccoll
january 2007