Shards and stones, sticks and bones

Research Statement: Shards and stones, sticks and bones Starkwhite Gallery, Auckland, 2025 Research Background Shards and stones, sticks and bones investigates matter and metamorphosis through sculptural, installation, video, and painting practices that synthesize childhood play, modernist design legacies, and occult knowledge systems. Building upon four decades of experimental practice since the mid-1980s, this project explores the permeable and changeable nature of materials—plastic, fabric, Perspex, clay, wood, plants, and sound—examining relationships between viewer and object through spatial activation. The research draws upon early 20th-century art movements including Dada, Constructivism, and Arte Povera, reinterpreting their material experiments and anti-establishment aesthetics through contemporary concerns. The exhibition's title evokes both nursery rhyme incantation and archaeological fragments, positioning found and elemental materials as repositories of memory and potential transformation. This work continues investigations into shelter, personal biography, and magical thinking, employing heterogeneous materials to create installations that resist singular interpretation and invite participatory engagement. Research Significance This research advances understanding of how artists sustain experimental practices across extended careers while remaining responsive to contemporary contexts. By maintaining commitments to material permeability and metamorphosis, the work contributes to discourse on process-based art and the artwork as unstable entity rather than fixed object. The integration of occult references with modernist formal languages challenges art historical narratives that position rationalism and mysticism as oppositional forces, demonstrating their productive entanglement. The project's significance lies in validating childhood play as epistemological framework—not nostalgic regression but serious inquiry into imaginative world-making and alternative logics. The invocation of "shards and stones, sticks and bones" connects archaeological thinking (fragments as evidence) with elemental materiality (earth, bone, wood), contributing to expanded definitions of sculpture as assemblage practice. The work's playful and fantastical qualities resist institutional solemnity, proposing joy and wonder as legitimate research methodologies within contemporary art. Research Contribution Shards and stones, sticks and bones contributes methodologically by demonstrating sustained engagement with heterogeneous materials as conceptual strategy rather than stylistic inconsistency. The research models how artists can synthesize influences across multiple historical movements without pastiche, extracting formal and philosophical principles to generate new aesthetic possibilities. By working simultaneously across sculpture, installation, video, and painting, the project contributes to discourse on medium-specificity's obsolescence, validating cross-disciplinary practice as intellectually rigorous. The work expands vocabularies for discussing fantastical art, positioning fantasy not as escapism but as critical lens for examining reality's constructed nature. The emphasis on metamorphosis contributes to process philosophy applications in visual art, demonstrating how materials can embody becoming rather than being. The exhibition establishes frameworks for understanding long-term artistic practices that resist market pressures toward signature styles, instead maintaining experimental curiosity and formal risk-taking across decades of production.

研究陈述：《碎片与石块、枝条与骸骨》（Shards and stones, sticks and bones）
奥克兰斯特克怀特画廊（Starkwhite Gallery），2025年

研究背景：《碎片与石块、枝条与骸骨》通过雕塑、装置、影像与绘画实践，探索物质与嬗变——该创作实践融合了童年游戏、现代主义设计遗产与神秘学知识体系。自1980年代中期起，创作者已拥有四十年的实验性创作历程，本项目以此为基础，探究塑料、织物、有机玻璃（Perspex）、黏土、木材、植物与声音等材料的易渗透性与可变性，并通过空间激活，审视观者与客体之间的关系。
本研究借鉴了20世纪早期艺术运动，包括达达主义（Dada）、构成主义（Constructivism）与贫穷艺术（Arte Povera），结合当代议题重新诠释这些运动的材料实验与反建制美学。本次展览的标题既呼应了童谣咒语，又指向考古碎片，将拾得物与基础材料定位为记忆与潜在嬗变的载体。本作品延续了此前对居所、个人生平与魔法思维的探索，采用异质材料创作装置，拒绝单一解读，邀请观者参与互动。

研究意义：本研究深化了我们对艺术家如何在漫长职业生涯中维系实验性实践，并始终响应当代语境的理解。通过坚守材料的渗透性与嬗变属性，本作品为过程性艺术以及“艺术品作为不稳定实体而非固定客体”的相关论述提供了新的学术支撑。
本研究将神秘学参照与现代主义形式语言相结合，挑战了将理性主义与神秘主义视为对立力量的艺术史叙事，展现了二者之间富有成效的纠缠关系。本项目的核心意义在于，确认童年游戏可作为认识论框架——它并非怀旧式的倒退，而是对构建想象世界与另类逻辑的严肃探究。
“碎片与石块、枝条与骸骨”的提法，将考古学思维（以碎片为证据）与基础物质性（土、骨、木）相连，拓展了作为集合实践的雕塑的定义边界。本作品兼具嬉戏与奇幻的特质，抗拒艺术机构的庄重感，提出愉悦与惊奇可作为当代艺术中合法的研究方法论。

研究贡献：《碎片与石块、枝条与骸骨》在方法论层面做出贡献，证明了将异质材料作为概念策略而非风格不一致性的持续探索。本研究示范了艺术家如何在不做风格仿作（pastiche）的前提下，融合多重历史运动的影响，提取形式与哲学原则以生成新的美学可能。
本项目同时涉足雕塑、装置、影像与绘画领域，为“媒介特异性的过时性”相关论述提供支持，确认跨学科实践具备严谨的学术性。本作品拓展了讨论奇幻艺术的词汇体系，将奇幻定位为审视现实建构本质的批判性透镜，而非逃避主义。
本研究对嬗变的强调，推动了过程哲学在视觉艺术中的应用，展现了材料如何体现“生成”而非“存在”的状态。本次展览构建了理解长期艺术实践的框架：这类实践抗拒市场对标志性风格的要求，在数十年的创作历程中始终保持实验性的好奇心与形式探索的冒险精神。