Sculptures
Idolatrous Floundering (2019) Wood and Mixed Media
The art of the middle ages was meant to be viewed the way motion pictures are in the modern world. By painstakingly combining different disciplines (sculpting, painting, jewelsmithing, architecture, and calligraphy), medieval artists created emotionally fraught works which told an ever-changing story. The hidden figures, complex allusions, and frame-by-frame narrative progression invited extended contemplation.
The sculpture “Idolatrous Floundering” is crafted to mimic these epic devotional artworks. Yet, whereas medieval art was meant to highlight the centrality of hierarchical religion in people’s lives, this sculpture apes such forms in order to examine the ways in which society uses emotional hooks to manipulate people for political or economic reasons. There is no sacred miracle at the heart of the hooked fish, just a dangerous trap. The strange addled worshipers and the natural world itself all stand in peril from this deadly devotion to false idols.
Like the artisans of yesteryear, I carefully sawed, carved, sanded, and engraved the elaborate frame (and using a lathe to turn the finials). Then I painted the panels and hand-sculpted (and baked) all of the little polymer figures. Hopefully the jewel-like work possesses some of the troubling power of devotional artwork, but I also hope it won’t serve as a reliquary for a world ruined and used up by desperate adulation of coercive seductions.
Panfish Panspermia (2018) Wood and Mixed Media
TurbotTo(d)T (2019) Styrofoam and Mixed Media
The bizarre asymmetry of the flatfish also appeals to me. Since my artwork seemingly concerns topology, this may be significant—although a classical knot theorist would blithely observe that a flatfish is homeomorphic with a torus (assuming one regards the digestive tract as a continuous tube).
Starry Flounder (2018) Wood and Mixed Media
The Heavenly Corn Bounty (2018) Wood with Mixed Media
The Floundering Chef (with Easy-Bake Filet) (2018) Mixed Media
The Dancing Peche (2018) Mixed Media
Mustang Sole (2017) Wood
Neapolitan Flatfish (2018) Wood and Mixed Media
This is “Neapolitan Flatfish” a sculpture made of wood, bone, and plastic toys. It is one of the extensive flatfish series of artworks which I have been working on, however, unlike the drawings which take a more expansive view of ecology and human history, “Neapolitan Flatfish” examines the prevailing ethos of the time which is to capture people’s money by providing them with exactly what they want (in this case the empty calories of airy frozen confections). Of course these aren’t actually delicious soft serve ice cream cones, they are really plastic junk from the dollar store. Yet given my unhappy history with making plastic toys, and given the ever growing burden of plastic detritus building up in the wild places of Planet Earth, perhaps the message becomes even more germane. The flounder is a predator and a prey animal–the “middle class of the ocean” although serious overfishing is leading to a precipitous decline of populations around the world (which matters little to Treasury Secretary Wilbur Ross, who would not be unhappy if everything and everyone died five minutes after he concludes his own earthly existence as a master of crooked insider deals). Ahem…anyway, sometimes it is a bit unclear who is fishing and who is being fished, but what could be more delightful than the unexpected charm of three different flavors (and different colors) which compliment each other perfectly being placed next to each other in one simple Rothko-like package? Please ignore the bone hook and the glittering blue predatory eyes and get ready for some birthday fun here at Ferrebeekeeper.
Also, don’t forget to ask the Great Flounder some of your own questions.
Romanesque Flounder with Babylonian Parasites (2018) Wood and Polymer
Victorian House Flounder (2017) Wood
Megalithic Tombfish (2018) Styrofoam and Plastic
Floundering Hearts: The Tree of Good and Evil (2019) Wood and Polymer 
Flounder of Paradise (2019) Wood and Polymer
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Galactic Fluke (2019) Wood and Polymer