Bumper Sculptures
My engagement with the plastic bumper covers continues my exploration with found materials or found objects. The covers hold provocative properties which have held my interest for several years. These objects have assumed a relationship to my interests in cars, painting, construction, urban culture, the sciences, and technology.
The bumper covers are currently displayed in groups on the wall, taking on the appearance of a large mounted trophy. Maybe each individual bumper cover is a trophy, given the difficulty of finding some colors. I have braved busy oncoming road traffic to secure what seemed to be an attractive addition to the collection. The grouping of these objects continues as a gesture of collecting and accumulation which has cast my studio into the appearance of a car body shop or auto garage of some type.
The customized garage is often the holding/display space collectors use for art or expensive refurbished autos. My studio has become the storage lot for arranging and mystifying my colorful car parts. Referencing the history of painting and junkyard display structures, I construct an elaborate wooden support for what may be seven bumper covers to create one of these mounted groupings. I slide the smooth curving plastic bumper bodies atop and between each other, resting when the fit is right. The arrangement mimics couplings and linkages we encounter within and between our own bodies, within cellular and molecular worlds, and the broader world of design and architecture.
