MDF, plexiglass, LEDs, metal rods, 3D printed PLA lithophanes, laser printed poetry
Installation 400 x 225 x 105 cm, each lithophane 21 x 21 x 0.5 cm, 2021
A Moment in Flux reflects my interactions with my cultural environment which can be defined as hypernature. Currently, it is a transitional phase where what could be perceived as natural/nature is a hybrid of traditional and modern ideas and the methods associated with them. I drew subjects that form my environment to discover and transfer a deeper awareness of this phenomenon. I wrote poems to accompany the drawings to share the thoughts and questions I accumulated during the time spent with the subjects.
Traditional and modern methods were combined to reflect the idea of hybridization. I used drawing and handwriting for the traditional methods. For the modern means, I translated the 36 drawings (Duragram) into 3D-printed plastic lithophanes and laser printed the poems onto transparent plastic sheets. The lithophanes and poems lay next to each other on six museum-style light tables to illuminate the pieces and take advantage of the attraction to light and storytelling. This project was a discovery of time and space within an environment of change and creating ways to represent and memorialize those findings.
A lively green gift
Watered and left in direct sun.
But I moved you to shade,
As your leaves started to fade.
I was a month-long fool
Caring for a faux succulent.
#faux
You hold pumps of perfection
To flawlessly mimic tone.
Silicones fill the cracks and crevices
Forming an even foundation.
A uniform that’s expected
To conceal a rugged reality.
#uniform
An old European face.
Changed to include members?
Or due to Sweden?
A natural political geography
Forming the union’s bi-coloured glue.
A central trust-based fiat
Ordering an illusion of value.
Yet, an uncertain forecast lurks.
#trust
Plerogyra Sinuous –
Your sun-soaking bubbles
Deflate by moonlight.
Hard skeletal septa revealed
Tentacles emerge to feed.
Harvested for aquariums
A near-threatened stone
Often mistaken as soft.
#bubbles
A common European Peacock
Seemingly unfazed by the climate
Prospering from land to land.
You use defensive eyespots
To intimidate and hisses to incite fear.
Then you hide in attics and hollow wood
To become motionless leaves
For a patient hibernation.
So how, oh, where is
The edge of your wing gone?
#peacock
My mandatory accessory.
The power of material.
Now I’m KN95 quality.
Airspace redefined.
Containment of exhaled waste.
The only pollution prevented.
White sterile control
Only removed to eat alone.
You’re Takeaway.
#containment
The temporary grapnel
Once in the great depths of the unseen.
Your tines grasping the rough bottom
Bringing stability to one’s storm.
Now motionless in a quiet café
Supporting a dried pufferfish.
Did you know this gloomy fate?
Do you still wonder what’s next?
#grapnel
Your impermeable sponge-bark
Numbered like livestock.
The need to shed.
Sheared like a sheep’s winter coat.
Relief from being farmed.
Renewed from being used.
You were getting rid of you anyway.
#shed
Monastery décor in ruins.
A most enchanting setting.
Your swirls mesmerize me.
You, the delicate, withstanding time.
The storks find solace at your tip.
A home before a hotel comes.
#ruins
Gone without explanation.
Your outline is still evident.
A concrete-shut memory,
Once – a welcoming passage.
Do you miss being accessible?
I’m allured by the barrier.
#memory
A ceramic vase to be gazed upon
Shaped to remind me of a mosque.
Who chose you to be the peak?
An appealing composition
For deflecting electric currents.
You indicate a lack of trust.
#peak
The backyard tree
Without chemicals, a rare specimen.
I look forward to your death day.
Do you anticipate being picked?
The stony fruit of peace –
Fertile – bearing endlessly
An oil to balance the unstable
Amidst chaotic decline.
#bearing
Long white needle-like spikes.
Protruding at all angles, guarding.
From my curious hands?
What’s underneath, something precious?
Don’t you have a tough, waxy skin?
Flowers only bloom with time and space.
Your survival tactic – preserve, protect.
Storage for predicted hardship?
#storage
There’s a real one of you
Tied up in the workshop
Kept as bait for hunting season.
Cannot flap and take flight.
Do you both suffer the same?
Always seeing, hearing the others?
Wondering what it must be like?
Do you mind being a watchbird?
#kept
Only from your presence
Can I identify a store.
Portugal’s rural invitation
to enter without intrusion.
Air, bugs, people pass through
The doorframe’s stringy gate.
For a fine sense of separation?
The embellished opening.
#identify
Thousands of tree clams
Hang in scattered bunches.
Your soft, brittle folds
Cascading into feminine delicacy.
Maturing green to brown.
Does something feed off you?
#treeclam
Feeling complete with all that “growth?”
Was it worth the patience, time, effort?
And yet your shell cracked.
If only you were stronger.
Terracotta, would you be perfectly preserved
If something didn’t touch, move, break you?
But then I wouldn’t have noticed you.
“Character,” some call it.
#shell
Though the rain is absent here
You accumulate a glistening patina,
By getting more oxygen than us?
Left in the back shadows
With a beautiful view the other way,
The rusty chair doesn’t face day.
At least you’re among content company.
Tiptoeing cats and perching birds…
Oh, and a broom.
#content
Did you know it’s not the morning sun
Why my cozy toes dare leave the bed?
You possess dominion over my day
Holding the exotic ingredient for my rite.
You, ingenious Bialetti, are between
Water and my brewing quintessence.
Shh…
#quintessence
The lone feather resting in grass.
Evidence of growth, letting go.
Who was tired, you or your host?
Maybe both?
Falling from which bird?
A castoff from moulting?
You’re the closest I can get
Without interference.
#evidence
A shifting shadow created
From the clothes hung on my chair.
Usually, it goes unnoticed.
The floor unfazed by its presence,
As shade on the surface doesn’t matter.
The first things I learned as a child.
Shade, tint, tone, hue all equally needed
To form beautiful connections.
#shadow
Alloy molded into a hollow ball.
Each mixture makes a different sound?
Do you ring, chime, or toll
To make one subconsciously aware?
A universal communication
Announcing a presence, time, unity
Attached to a chocolate bunny.
A marker of beginnings and ends.
#conscious
A behind-the-scenes view.
So much connected to wisdom.
Evolution’s expendables.
Unable to align harmoniously,
Causing havoc to its neighbours,
Migraines to its host.
We must intervene, alter, pull.
Time and pain doesn’t always
Equal purposeful growth.
#wisdom
Is it confusing to be essential
Yet terminated like a pest?
A weed of endless wishes holding
Strong roots and spreading seed
Afar into dreams blooming life.
The determined dandelion.
A role model?
#determineddande
Are you sure you’re that?
You seem confident using bold caps.
When I turn you on – you stay on.
When I turn you off – you stay off.
Dear oven, the only thing between you
And those letters burning to soot
Is my ability to remember.
#oven
Brutally severed and placed in water.
A sacrifice to please the senses.
Will you live a little while longer?
For months here wilting away.
Barely alive, you’d crumble
To dry ash with one whisper.
Is it a comfortable resting place?
It’s not where your roots are, but
I don’t know where else to lay you.
#livealittle
A tiny yet effective barrier
Sealing paste from contamination.
Is the outer world so dangerous?
The need to protect integrity.
Who chose a gear?
For pragmatic function?
Opening a new tube brings
A fresh effortless bead.
#contamination
Purchased for the mysterious fridge space.
Ironically, not in the mood to consume.
Subconsciously waiting for you to decay,
To allow a guilt-free throwaway.
Are you happy to be left uneaten
To enjoy the experience of aging?
You’re moved to the outside windowsill.
A nice retirement home with a view!
#happyapple
How do you tessellate so harmoniously?
Is that skillful or instinctual intricacy?
Did you detach from something colossal?
Caused by a diver, pollution, or giving up?
Taken away from the sand and salty mist,
Do you all feel mutual grief?
Why do we collect beach skeletons
To keep as decoration?
#skeleton
Does it hurt being trampled on?
Do you mind when you’re cut?
Maybe you feel restored?
How long do you wish to grow?
Without senses to understand why.
Is it a constant, misunderstood battle?
You’re not the only one,
Millions like you are a cycled size.
#grassbattle
You hold a royal pose.
Classy, like you’re from the ’20s.
Is it strange to be unlike your mien?
Like wearing the wrong lipstick?
Do you feel like you don’t fit in?
A cheap, plastic base
To support “genuine” jewelry.
Maybe you don’t mind.
#pose
The parts that fell off
During transportation and rough handling.
You were supposed to be in my soup.
Instead, you wait to be wiped away.
A better fate than the last one?
It’s easy to discard inconveniences.
Only small matter — until accumulated.
Would the farmers be upset?
#matter
A label with power.
Beguiling letters imprinted
Triggering soothing bubble cravings.
Did you know you’re sustained
By your polluting relationships?
Is this drinking glass also toxic?
#label
From China I see… How was it there?
I hear it’s all the rave these days.
“Ambient white light” in box letters.
Yet, you flash erratic disco colours.
Did the assemblers appreciate you at least?
“LeaderPro”— in working exploitation.
#disco
You display subliminal intentions
To be comforting and pure.
A doily and pot to steep and rest upon,
As your vitality is quickly consumed.
After two times infused,
Your benefits are supposedly spent.
Weakened Plastic Peppermint,
What could be done with you?
#comfort
Maybe a sycamore or a London plane
Endured loaded stress to become
The magnificent silhouette
In captivating poise.
Are you in need of attention?
Spiky seeds strike pedestrians.
You discard yourself bare
To be left foolishly vulnerable.
#silhouette
April Fowlow 