EXCHANGES AND RETURNS
My work reconstructs and interprets industrially made parts to accommodate the human body and symbolize human functions within the modern world. Elements are altered in scale and setting and positioned in a way to interface with the body. Coated in sanitary white, they suggest cleanliness and institutional authority.
The elements of our constructed environment on which my sculptures are based are designed for function and practicality. This allows them to blend into our surroundings as they guide and regulate the movement of energy, electricity, water, fuel, traffic, and human beings. We rely on them for certain truths – if you turn the knob you get water, if you open the vent you will be warm. Because of their role in the built environment and our physiological and our psychological dependence on them, they have become fragments of us and define our culture.
I find beauty and pleasure in looking at and understanding these constructed systems. They invoke our faith in them through their design and implementation, inviting complicity because of their seamless integration into our lives. The sculptures draw on familiar characteristics of systems that are meant to sustain our way of life. The work deviates from the ordinary just enough to appear as something vaguely unfamiliar, leading us to question that which is known a priori and what we accept as truth.
For more images, visit my website www.andreagracemiller.com
Photographs by Jim Escalante
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