Much of my personal work since the early 1970s can be described in a single word: "Boxes". Or, to be even more descriptive: "Angled Boxes".
Angled Boxes C Wide August 2018
Perhaps I should face reality and just admit, maybe, I have a "problem" with boxes.
Self Portrait 2003
Or, to paraphrase a quote attributed to J.B.S. Haldane, "I have an inordinate fondness for boxes".
Miscellaneous 1970s
Why do I continue to repetitively draw, animate, and build boxes?
Miscellaneous 1980s
Is my obsession with boxes an OCD-related symptom?
Miscellaneous 1990s
I never stopped to seriously consider "why" until 2004, when several of my prints were selected for the "2004 SIGGRAPH Art Gallery: Synaesthesia" exhibition, to be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
seri_A G_1, seri_B A_1, seri_C D_1 2002
As part of the entry process I had to submit an "Artist's Statement". Here are some excerpts from what I wrote...
"While growing up in Vancouver’s West End during the '50s and '60s, my neighborhood of two- and three-story wood frame houses was being torn down and replaced by high-rise concrete apartment buildings. I loved it. To me, it was as if whole city blocks were being transformed into massive sculpture installations, with each piece soaring hundreds of feet high."
"By the late '70s and early '80s most of my personal work consisted of pen-and-ink and color-wash drawings of complex geometric compositions."
"My current personal work echoes those pen-and-ink compositions of the late '70s and early '80s."
"... also recalls those early feelings of immersion within massive, neighborhood filling, concrete sculptural pieces."
Vancouver's West End Early '50s / Late '60s
So, was my obsession with boxes initiated by those high-rise concrete apartment buildings sprouting up in Vancouver's West End beginning in the 1950's?
Can't say for sure, but it's plausible, and I like the sound of it.
Octane City 2 2012
However, I think there has always been another force compelling me to disappear into my work, and a world of boxes...
Escape.
Escape from the sense of a lack of control, from the fear of failure, from feeling stupid, from poor social skills, from low self-esteem, from being exposed as a fraud, and from who knows what else.
Or, more recently, escape from America's descent into mass insanity, Brexit, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, North Korean missiles, etc.
Of course, there are less dramatic reasons for escape, things like stress, deadlines, money worries, relationship issues, and so on.
Untitled May 17, 2021
The point is, when I really get into my work, everything else falls away, time no longer exists, and I'm in a world where everything is under control, in its right place (yeah, I know that sounds like a song lyric), clean, precise, peaceful, and immutable.
I like it there.
blck_A_3 April, 2023
Could there have been another influence on my work and obsession with "Angled Boxes"?
Possibly.
In 2005, while browsing the internet, I came across images of the Centro del Espacio Escultórico located in the University Cultural Center (CCU), in Ciudad Universitaria, south of Mexico City.
This massive sculpture installation was constructed between 1977 and 1979.
I was shocked when I saw the pictures.
From certain angles, the installation looked almost exactly like some of the drawings and prints I'd been making for decades.
seri_A B_2 & seri_A A_1 September, 2002
Did I come across images of this sculpture installation sometime in the '70s or '80s?
I'm not conscious of it, but the unsettling thing is, it's a possibility.
Angled Boxes D Wide August, 2018
B Men_1 June, 2021
To view more (a lot more) examples of "boxes" in my work, visit the "Series Prints", "Miscellaneous CG", "Sculpture Models", and "One Zero Base Two" pages.
