Dublin Core
Title
Build-A-Bode
Subject
Home; security; companionship; quarrels
Description
Three life sized PVC and assemblage sculptures.
2023 Macalester College studio art capstone project
Artist's statement: Build-A-Bode consists of three life size imitation sprue sheets, mimicking the part found in injection molded plastic model kits. This triptych of sculptural panels focuses on components people "break-off" and bring into their own homes to define and comfort themselves. These "pieces of home" have been grouped into: firstly security, secondly companionship, and lastly quarrels, as what arose as the most emergent themes of home for me.
The project began with real used items from my own home; an old laundry basket, my cat's food dish, a worn metal shovel. As I found relevant objects to my themes I laid them out in 6 x 4 rectangles and constructed PVC frames to affix them upon. Utilizing oven baked hot sand, I filled pvc sections and bent 90° corners over a jig to mimic the consistent curves of injection molded sprues. After fastening the items with a combination of glue and screws, I finished them with matte and low gloss spray paint colors that create the illusion of uniform plasticity and reflect the contents of each panel.
While the categories of sprue sheets can be read as prescribed notions of each theme, I selected potentially unconventional items that may fill the need for companionship and security in particular, such as forms of media, self-companionship, and medication bottles. Part of this artistic process has been dealing with and lessening anxiety around the construction of home, supplanting worry with opportunity and agency.
This project reflects my complicated relationship with home and family, elevating fears and insecurities particularly about my own ability to have a healthy home in the future. This, to me, also focuses on the play between the reconstruction of home as a struggle and a gift. The open-ended nature of these themes is emphasized through form and layout, each panel an assemblage of real objects back into prescribed model sheets, ready for the viewer to pluck off and curate for themselves.
2023 Macalester College studio art capstone project
Artist's statement: Build-A-Bode consists of three life size imitation sprue sheets, mimicking the part found in injection molded plastic model kits. This triptych of sculptural panels focuses on components people "break-off" and bring into their own homes to define and comfort themselves. These "pieces of home" have been grouped into: firstly security, secondly companionship, and lastly quarrels, as what arose as the most emergent themes of home for me.
The project began with real used items from my own home; an old laundry basket, my cat's food dish, a worn metal shovel. As I found relevant objects to my themes I laid them out in 6 x 4 rectangles and constructed PVC frames to affix them upon. Utilizing oven baked hot sand, I filled pvc sections and bent 90° corners over a jig to mimic the consistent curves of injection molded sprues. After fastening the items with a combination of glue and screws, I finished them with matte and low gloss spray paint colors that create the illusion of uniform plasticity and reflect the contents of each panel.
While the categories of sprue sheets can be read as prescribed notions of each theme, I selected potentially unconventional items that may fill the need for companionship and security in particular, such as forms of media, self-companionship, and medication bottles. Part of this artistic process has been dealing with and lessening anxiety around the construction of home, supplanting worry with opportunity and agency.
This project reflects my complicated relationship with home and family, elevating fears and insecurities particularly about my own ability to have a healthy home in the future. This, to me, also focuses on the play between the reconstruction of home as a struggle and a gift. The open-ended nature of these themes is emphasized through form and layout, each panel an assemblage of real objects back into prescribed model sheets, ready for the viewer to pluck off and curate for themselves.
Creator
Owen Burgdorf-Hibbs
Source
Owen Burgdorf-Hibbs; Cheryl Wilgren
Publisher
Visual Resources Library
Date
2023
Contributor
KB
Rights
The artist holds the rights
Format
PVC; assemblage; 6'x4'; found objects; spray paint
Type
Sculpture; assemblage; triptych, installation
21st century
21st century
Still Image Item Type Metadata
Original Format
Sculpture; triptych; PVC; found items; assemblage
Physical Dimensions
6' x 4'