ARTIST STATEMENT

Little Room Where Everything Happens – the exhibition title translated from Italian – is a group of three sculptures and two works on paper that were conceived to interact with the characteristics of the room where they were to be exhibited, because it’s a space with a large window that one undoubtedly notices when walking into the room. Looking out to an urban view of a city anchors me to the notion of time and place and the connection with a world outside, which sets the tone for the work, and hence the title of the show.
 
These sculptures continue to explore the concept I’ve been preoccupied with since my very first show No Logo at West LA College in 2015, where I deconstructed and reconfigured shopping bags into sculptures, flipping the paper-made bags inside out, outside in, while addressing the lack of individuality in the marketplace. Then the show Planes Structures in 2017 at 18th street Art Center, I used flat pieces of aluminum sheets to construct shapes, also to address the notion “is there in fact such thing as a 'right side'?" by interchanging the front and back, challenging the separation we make automatically of the two sides, front and back. 
 
The sculptures in this show, using the same aluminum sheets as a base for structure, still play with the similar dichotomies, inside or out, front or back, as the sides switch places and order. While it’s not obvious that the sculpture started with a two dimensional material (although we all know that a two dimensional object doesn’t exist); and unlike beginning with solid volumes as in traditional sculpture making, this material being thin and malleable also seemed to be about drawing, in that I relied on intuitive and quick decision making, similar to my process of drawing. The flat surface that reminded me of paper just lent itself to draw through space and time moving with more mass. And thinking about this, I wanted the sculptures to contain as many negative forms as positive ones (in a Euclidean space), working together in harmony: negative and positive space seemed to me another dichotomy I could question through my sculpture making.
 
The title of each work is in Italian for I was envisioning a particular room that belonged to my apartment in Milan, which was also in a high rise with a wide unobstructed view of the city.