On Objects:
“Man is a builder of receptacles.”
Primo Levi, A Bottle of Sunshine
Humans have inextricably linked boxes and function. In the eyes of man a box is a container. A built object must have purpose or else why would it have been made? And if an object has a function, then it will be used. In fact using the object as per its assigned function is fulfilling some abstract purpose and not doing so would be a waste, an insult to the object and its potential.
What if a box has no distinct function? What does it mean to exist in the world without a purpose? Or further to intentionally disregard function. Looking at the objects of the past whose function has been lost to time; humans do not know what to make of these objects of curiosity. How foreign, an object with no obvious purpose to exist.
The following boxes were built by the artist from found wood and branding nail, and their surfaces were drawn on with graphite, colored pencil, oil, wax, and finished with found furniture hardware.
Beginning with the first, each following box can fit the prior in itself, thus the series is collapsable, simultaneously containing and concealing each other.
