Chris Duncan
Artist Statement
I have a studio-based practice, making objects that are hand built and mostly low-tech. These sculptures are constructed, assembled from parts, using paper, cardboard and other ephemeral materials. The forms start from the ground and lurch or twist up. The work emphasizes materiality, with torn and cut edges and visible hardware located casually throughout. I resin the surfaces, which are shiny, industrial, and often brightly colored. The color is layered on, and surfaces switch from painted and epoxied to raw and exposed.
I work and re-work materials and images looking for a structure that’s visually satisfying, layered, and open to different meanings. These sculptures are intended to encompass and perhaps evoke feelings, sensations, memories. You could say I value a kind of tension between the raw and the cooked. There is an immediacy in the working process that allows for response to the way a work looks and feels;to qualities of gravity, balance, and surface that make sense visually, physically and emotionally. I want the sculptures to includeboth rationality and passion, structure and gesture. And in the end I want to be at least a little bit surprised.