Building Resonance

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Ben Gale-Schreck April 6th 2016 Abstract My art practice is greatly influenced by my familial relationships. Using sculpture and performance, the interaction between my work and its audience is essential. As a tributary connects bodies of water, I aim to connect the memories of my late father, and my own past, to the experiences I have with my children. Collecting discarded materials and repurposing them is essential to my practice. I give these materials new life and create experience-based sculptures that carry the viewer into an alternate state. I aim to suspend the viewer between reality and fantasy, the past and present. Offering them a glimpse into my romanticized but perceptive view of the human experience. Finding universal truths through the exploration of my own history, I recall childhood through the lens of a child, and build it through the hands of a father. Exploring material, sound, and form through object and performance I aim to weave the present and the past. The scope of my practice has predominately been grounded by my connection to my place of origin and fatherhood. My research into origin through my studio practice revealed to me the significance of the degeneration of and departure from origin. I am interested in engineered and manufactured building materials such as oriented strand board (OSB) and corn syrup, because of their tangible representation of multiple states of time. Byproducts of industry, their materiality reduced to degenerate versions of their natural form. Resonance, both in the audible sense as well as an object’s ability to evoke memory or understanding guides my explorations. This exploration is dependent upon the interaction of the viewer, and their perception of my work. Employing a variety of resonance chambers that mimic the form of the coffin and the cradle, I am seeking to create a moment of oscillating perceptions. As life and death are in chorus with each other, a beginning and an end, a future and a past, seen for a moment finding resonance with now. The resonance chambers will produce sound, and vibration, offering an invitation for interpretation through their interaction.