Sculpture
Rhythm of Return allows the viewer to experience paper pulp viscerally, watching it rock back and forth and almost spill over onto the floor. The green pulp is created from cast-off papers from holiday announcements. The once cheery, inviting solicitations are rendered into a unknowable sludge that threatens to stain the pristine white pedestal on which it rests. The rhythm of the pulp is uneven and mechanical, an unsettling contrast to how watery substances, like waves and rivers, typically move in nature. However, the unending, jerky cycle of the pulp allows it to remain in liquid form so that the viewer can experience an important facet of the papermaking process within the gallery. Without constant agitation, the pulp would dry and become a paper object in the shape of the box in which it is contained. This work brings the process to life that approximates, but doesn’t quite accomplish “nature.”
Click on this link for video documentation of this work.
To find out more about the Boekel Rocker and other cool laboratory tools and equipment click here!
Photography by Pd Rearick