"Match.com"
Rope, Phone Books, Staples, Obsessive Behavior
Singular waveform constructed of stapled telephone book paper intersects every room in my house (8 rooms/1500 sq feet).
I am interested in the space where the inner and the outer world meet, where personal reality argues for territory against what actually occurs.
The home, for me, is the extension of the self… an expansion of the boundary of the psyche’s consciousness. It can be a prison, a refuge, a sanctuary, a protective wall. I am interested in examining the construction of our psychological and emotional boundaries and in what truly goes on behind our walls, in the mental spaces we have created. Repetitive actions, like thoughts, create reality. In my work, physical space, like mental space, is invaded with objects created from that repetitive action or thinking and is constructed, like nature, of bits of growth or experience that are layered in a cumulative effect to create a reality: a stalagmite, a stalactite, a coral reef, a self-view, a personal story.
Using what is found in the home for construction is metaphor for using of bits of the self. In my work, the viewer is invited to enter and experience the space, wherein a tension exists as a result of the battle between conflicting desires that goes into boundary placement. For the viewer, there is an element of inclusion and exclusion, as much of the space is physically inaccessible, and the undercurrent of discomfort is almost indiscernible from the beauty or wonder of the object that is creating the emotion.
Through the construction process, perfection is also questioned and rejected, as all actions and accidents are incorporated “as is” to create a true reality, one not masked over through pathologization or disownment of negative thoughts or emotions; to accept the so-called flaws as a necessary part of the true fabric of the self which, in turn, helps to strengthen the ego’s ability to assert boundary.
Nancy Tobin
