The Nightingale and the Rose

The Nightingale & The Rose, 2019
multimedia installation at Hair & Nails Gallery

In literature and decorative arts, Nightingale and Rose is a metaphor for the beloved and lover par excellence; the rose is beautiful, proud, and often cruel, while the bird sings endlessly of longing and devotion. The Nightingale and the Rose series brings the ancient motif of Nightingale and Rose (Gol-o-Bolbol) to the contemporary setting, addressing the dynamics of food, economy and human relationships in our evermore-globalized world. This series contemplates the role of power structure in interpersonal relationships as well as international relations; where the asymmetrical relationship of bird and flower echoes from individual level to family, state, national and international political systems.

Where Red Tulips Grow, 2019
kitchen gloves, cast resin hand models, CNC machined styrofoam, latex
approx. 43” x 43” x 57”

Chicken & Egg, 2018
cast resin, plexiglass, LED lights, wooden base
40” x 24” 16”

Pillow Talks, 2017
cast concrete, cast porcelain
7” x 7” x 5” each

Nightingale and Rose Souvenirs, 2017
slip cast porcelain, gold luster, ceramics decal
approx. 5 1/4” x 7” x 5 1/2” each

Nightingale and Rose Souvenirs is a discourse on collectibles, the nick-knack shelf, the gilt teacups, the precious object, and home-making.

Cairns and way-finding to culture, 2017

Nightingale and Feathers, 2017

A humorous riff on the Nightingale perched in his aerie, regal, aloof, an object aloft; Mohammed, Buddha, Messiah, Autocrat, with acolytes and subjects at his feet; the privilege of bronze, suspended, subtended by the common object. Feathers spill; the antipathy of current politics, the rift that divides, the body that gathers, of us versus them, perhaps a false binary where under the patriotic pin, the show of colors, it’s the same old chicken, (tarred) and feathered.

A bird is three things:
Feathers, flight and song,
And feathers are the least of these. –Marjorie Allen Seiffert

Re Member Dis, 2017
two-channel HD video projection
02:51

Remember: To bring to mind, to bear in mind.
Dismember: To sever limbs, partition, divide.
Member: To belong to a family, group, or tribe; Constituent piece; limb, organ.

The Audience, 2016

The Nightingale and The Rose, 2016

Where the kiln fire fixes into permanence and durability, water incises and dissolves, holds potentiality in suspension. This proposes a death before life, a redirection. This is an invitation of image slipping into image, of returning the materiality of the object to itself, its original nature. It is an exploration of that elemental destructive unfolding, that beautiful death.

Bed of Roses, 2016
cast porcelain, plexiglass, rose petals, rose water
12” x 24” x 5”

This is the time: the time of making and un-making, the real time dissolve of green-ware in rose-water, a material investigation, a sacrifice; the body in the limiting frame; the Rose – water and blood – the life and death of the Nightingale.

Blow of Mercy, 2016
cast porcelain, vintage Victorian ceramic decals, gold luster
7.5” x 7” x 3.5” each

The Devotion (n + 1), 2016

The Devotion (n + 1) intends to be both a comic and ironic study of the idea of devotion: to nation, religion, family or even devotion to an idea itself. This work contemplates the role of power structure in interpersonal relationships as well as international relations; where the asymmetrical relationship of bird and flower echoes from individual level to family, state, national and international political systems.