For the last year I’ve worked on a series for my newest solo exhibition “Enter the 36 Chambers” and it his made of of 36 one of a kind pieces…each a training “Chamber” like in the Shaw Brother’s film “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin”, but if it were for your emotions.
Below is the artist statement I wrote for this work:
Part “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin” and part “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)”, Enter the 36 Chambers is a series of sculptural emotional portraits that focus on the path to self discovery, and the heart and the battle that it takes to get there.
This series has roots in many things but discovery of self, challenging your thoughts, and emotional growth are at the core, with the story being told through dead birds, found objects and various references to Wu-tang lyrics and Shaw brothers movies, among other things.
Art is funny. You don’t have to like Wu-Tang Clan or Shaw Brothers Kung Fu movies or even dead birds to find something in this series that might resonate with you. Those things are just starting points, lenses through which a story is being told. When you look at them, you may see them in different ways entirely. For me they are emotional portraits, or a sculpture of a feeling, and I want that to be universal so that anyone can feel it and in their own way.
I use dead birds as a vehicle because they are vulnerable and beautiful. You want to protect them, despite the worst being over. I think looking back at emotions can be a bit like that. You’ve already felt them...it’s over, they’re gone. Yet we sit with them and obsess, relive, dissect or reimagine them. I think the best thing for me is to learn from them and move forward... but I also feel that is a struggle, a daily battle to not dissect what I felt and why.
Enter the 36 Chambersis about mastering emotions... the idea being that as you are working through these emotions, each represented as a Chamber, you eventually get to a place of peace, or at very least the ability to find calm and stillness even when there isn’t any.
You can see this exhibition online HERE at Antlerpdx.com
All 36 pieces before they were sent off to Antler Gallery in Portland, OR