Arcy Douglass

Over the last couple of days, I have been working hard on a review of a show of Eadweard Muybridge’s work for PORT (http://www.portlandart.net/).  The review takes Muybridge’s ideas of space and time and applies them to Cubism, Hockney’s photo collages and the movie The Matrix.

The direct link to the post is:

http://www.portlandart.net/archives/2008/08/edward_muybridg.html

Maryhill Overlook by Allied Works

A few weeks ago, Jeff Jahn and I had chance to sit down with Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture to discuss the influences that art has had on his work.  The coversation went very and it was very interesting.  The first part of the interview has been posted on PORT (http://www.portlandart.net/)

The direct link to the post is:

http://www.portlandart.net/archives/2008/08/art_and_archite.html

Equivalent 1, 2008

I have been working on a series of stainless steel hexagon tile fields in my studio and the Columbia River Gorge.  I am able to draw with the natural geometry of the tiles by simply placing them down and also by removing them.  The more tiles that I remove the more the background (or the space/ environment) becomes a part of the composition.

If there is any art in this work, it is not in any one of the tiles. One tile is not materially different than any of the other tiles. One tile removed from the field does not take a corresponding amount of “art” with it. The tiles are just tiles. It is the way that the tiles interact with the environment that is the basis of the experience of the work.

Equivalent 1, 2008

I have been working on a Project Grant to fabricate approx. 2000 of these hexagons and do four installations in the Columbia River Gorge over the course of the year. 

An interesting thing happens when you take the geometry of a field of tiles that align together perfectly on a flat floor and then drape them over a rock or a log in the Gorge.  The geometry between the tiles deforms according to the surface that they are placed.  In other words,  the tiles are an analog of whatever environment that they are placed in.  You could say that the tiles inabililty to perfectly conform to a natural object produces a form of drawing that is a unique combination of the tiles and whatever they are placed on.

Equivalent 1, 2008

Recently,  I have been working on a series called Equivalents, where the module of the repeating tiles creates a measuring device that can reveal the scale of a found object.  In the case of the log, the number of the tiles along the surface of the log is equivalent to the length of the log.  The change in the relative position/ angle of the tiles is related to the geometry of the log itself. A more complex installation might be installing the tiles so that they describe the topography of a given or the might measure the volume of a given space.

The resulting field of tiles is a collaboration between myself and the environment. The field responds to the phsyical charcteristics or topography of a site and each distribution of tiles is unique. It is a different way of drawing in the environment.

Square, 2008

Rather than drawing designs in the forest,  I have found that it is important to link the position of the tiles to the environment in some way. The translation of the existing environment  into a new material/ form/ approach is the basis for what I hope would be an interesting experience.

In the studio, since it is not the environment that changes, I have been interested in creating the equivalent of geometric shapes: a circle, a square and a triangle. Since the hexagons are never able to match the geometry of one of these shapes, it is the difference between the field of the tiles and the shape that creates the work. In other words, it is the hexagons are only able to the approximate one of these shapes. It is the difference the between the approximation and the actual shape that creates the work.

Triangle, 2008

It is the gap between the field of tiles and the shape that they are describing that encourages a deeper understanding of drawing and reproduction.

Triangle (Detail), 2008