The Gift / The Curse/ The Climb

Toothpicks, glue, Tiffany-style billiard table lamps, ceramic, glaze, underglaze, studio debris, paper, hardware catalogs, memory foam, plywood.
2020
40 x 48 x 60 inches

This work was created for The Artist’s Studio Is Her Bedroom at the Contemporary Art Gallery, curated by Kimberly Phillips. The title comes from my interpretation of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where the character played by Richard Dreyfuss is given a gift, which becomes a curse, and leads to his climb to escape. This is all against the backdrop of failing domestic and professional relationships where all the people surrounding him are expected to put up with his behaviour as he seeks out the answer to his inspired, otherworldly inspiration.

Photographs courtesy the Contemporary Art Gallery.