Kinetic · Mixed-media · Installation

abandon / perception

abandon / perception is a kinetic, mixed-media solo exhibition centered around abandoned objects and looping motion. The work explores the realization that time passes quietly between the big moments. This show was designed as a space to slow down, step back, and consider time as it passes.

“I liked it, like when one has a fire in the fireplace, something moving while you stare.”— Marcel Duchamp

Building on my previous explorations of interactive spaces, this show tackles the impossible task of controlling time through physical fabrication. The gallery functions as a fragmented amusement park of childhood nostalgia, using custom-built kinetic sculptures and projection mapping to examine how we process, normalize, and distort reality as we age.

Installation view — the gallery as a fragmented amusement park — Installation — the gallery as a fragmented amusement park

The Works

Repurposed toy motor · reclaimed bicycle wheel · hardware

Upcycling

A miniature Ferris wheel built entirely from hardware-store scraps. The motor is salvaged from a broken disco ball I'd had since I was a kid; the wheel is a reclaimed bicycle rim, with metal caps fixed around the edge standing in for passenger cars. A nod to the readymades of the early 1900s, it's a small homage to Tennessee's lost amusement parks — Libertyland, Opryland — an attempt to rebuild a piece of somewhere that isn't there anymore.

Reclaimed wheelbarrow · digital projection

Coaster

A rusted-out wheelbarrow, handle and wheel missing, sits tipped on the gallery floor like it was abandoned there 30 years ago. Projected down into its metal basin is a looping, hand-drawn animation: small children being pushed around in this exact wheelbarrow by their grandfather. The pristine object from family footage layered over the discarded, decaying remnants of what it became. Both are beautiful differently, and more so together.

The rotoscoped animation, frame by frame

Digital projection · enclosed dark room · VR / 360 video

Never/Wonderland

A dark room, lit by projectors aimed at the four walls. Each wall runs a continuous, hand-drawn animation of an object that brought a deep sense of wonder in childhood: a treasure ship caught in a storm inside a bottle, a gently rocking tree swing, a trick birthday candle that blows out and relights, and a mason jar full of blinking lightning bugs. A version has also been reformatted to play on 360 web players and VR headsets.

Custom crank mechanism · wood · metal hardware · hand-cut prints

Time Warp

At the center of the room is a big, hand-cranked zoetrope. Inside the drum runs a sequence of animations — a clock ticking through its hours while a child slowly ages into an old woman. To see it move, you have to turn the handle yourself and watch through the slits cut into the side. The effect lives or dies on your rhythm: crank too fast and a lifetime blurs past; crank too slow and it falls apart into stiff, disconnected frames. You have to find the exact speed of the present to bring it to life. (Credit: the aging sequence was rotoscoped over frames from Anthony Cerniello's short film "Danielle" — an incredible piece of work.)

Gallery

Recognition

Nashville Scene — 2015 Critic's Choice

This show served as the culminating solo exhibition for the 2013 Margaret Stonewall Wooldridge Hamblet Award. Following a year of funded independent research — visiting art conferences, galleries, and museums, producing a documentary film, and relocating to Los Angeles — this gallery show at Vanderbilt's Space 204 was the direct result of a dedicated period of artistic exploration. The exhibition was recognized by Nashville Scene Magazine as a 2015 Critic's Choice cultural event.

About the Hamblet Award · Vanderbilt Dept. of Art →

The exhibition title and artist name on the gallery wall