ARTIST STATEMENT

The chair is one of the most interacted with objects in our society; much of our waking life is spent sitting. It is intricately woven into the fabric of our daily lives by its response to our needs.  We depend on this object for support and comfort from our daily struggles without much thought. I manipulate this typical furniture form to create pieces that reveal our struggles as social beings.

By altering the functional aspects of the chair, I invite viewers to contemplate this object and consider our similarities. The chair, like its occupant, is made up of legs, back, seat and arms. Chairs are made to fit a single person at a single time.  I employ these facts to suggest the private nature of our personal issues.  I use the chair, with its body parts, as a metaphor for how people respond to their emotional lives.

In the dictionary, the definition for “seat” is not limited to seating apparatus.  It also is a name for the part of the body considered the place in which an emotion is centered, as in the heart is the seat of passion.  Likewise, the seating area in my chairs relates to their emotional core.  I manipulate the typical form of a chair to emphasize the figurative qualities that are a metaphor for psychological disquiet.  The familiar body parts allow the chair to be a representation of its occupant while the manipulation of form simultaneously denies that individual physical access.  This dysfunctional furniture at once acknowledges our concerns, while its humor and gesture suggest hope.