Wooden Pallet Drawing

My work uses digitally composed architectural forms as the framework for visually habitable space. The resultant sculptures are fractured planes of wood, steel and photographic media that invite the viewer to explore as though wandering from room to room in a partially built or demolished building. I use the strategy of an architectural model to pull the viewer into a speculative experience. However, the work deviates from this mode in that, rather than mapping out functional space, it demarcates a set of details that characterized a previous experience. This distillation of memory engages the viewer in an active oscillation between the consideration of discrete elements and the attempt to sense the object as a whole. All of my work begins as a 3D computer model. Using a digital model allows me to create and edit complex forms that I would not be able to accurately represent working by hand. This process came out of digital pattern making for steel and wood fabrication, but evolved as I began to use the photographs in place of the patterns. The photographs work in dialogue with the 3D model as their placement forces a revision of the original composition. The eventual combination of composed geometry alongside recognizable images forms a bridge between seeing the work as a volume or experiencing it as an environment, and offers an entry point into sculptures that seem to inhabit multiple types of space and scale simultaneously. Currently I am working to incorporate handheld 3D scanning into this process to further sample from the referenced environment. My choice of materials is dependent on the intended scale of the recreated space. Wood is a very effective material for translating architectural features such as beams, capitals and doors, or to reference furniture-like components that indicate a specific use. The photographic media on the other hand, create a paradoxical depth in the surface that opens up more space than it consumes, and undermines a fixed sense of scale. It is important that the photographs are considered as architecture rather than collage, as the images are not relational but more like sampled textures or reclaimed materials that recreate the place from which they were taken. Working as such extends my practice to include events and environments that will become imprinted on the outer surfaces of sculpture as the transformed reflection of their surroundings. -Patrick D Wilson January 2014