Architecture begins when you carefully put two bricks together.
- Mies Van Der Rohe

The works in this collection have been made on a similar principal: art begins once you carefully place two materials together.

The foam wall works occupy the space of a painting but operate as sculptures, changing their effect as the light passing over them changes.

The wall works emerged from an earlier body of research prototypes for architectural facades systems using rejected polyurethane foam. Using uneven smaller scrap pieces, a common waste stream of upholsters, cladding patterns similar to rusticated stonework begin to form once the pieces are placed together. By sealing the pieces in a coating material, latex paints or waterproofing membranes, the foam is rendered resistant to water, dust and degradation.

The monotone created by the enclosing finish vanquishes the differences in the foam's natural colour, allowing the compositions to be reduced to a set of formal relationships.

Once the works get to this point a few meanings start to come through for me. In one way, they look like the fragmented boolean difference'd pieces of a masonry construction: effortless subtractions from places of great weight, like a Gordon Matta-Clark work.

Other times, the relationships of the orthogonal-yet-imprecise blocks in dissonance with one another feels relatable to the hierarchy of priorities we juggle internally in order to pass through life. No one seems to win, but others stand out more than others. Or, most simply, the assemblages are just collages of little spaces we might trace with our eyes while on a phone call or lost in thought.

Designer: Charlie White
Year: 2024

Dimensions: 62 x 92 cm
Materials: Polyurethane foam, external paint, timber

Signed on back. 

One-of-a-kind original.

Photography courtesy of artist.