The impulse for Structures of Impermanence came from a dream experience, which I sought to capture in a drawing (the first page of the ‘Drawing’ section). This image seemed to represent a subconscious processing of many of the concerns that had been preoccupying me: abandoned or decaying industrial architecture, façade, the explosive consequences of keeping emotion contained, the tension between the rational or ordered and the subconscious or uncontrolled, and the idea of displacement; its energy and excitement but also the disturbance and sense of dislocation and alienation.
The steel structures evolved out of a desire to materialize an aspect of the original painting. They explored the idea of loss, the fine lines of the steel defining much larger areas of negative space. They were also about making manifest an idea of the damaged self that seeks uncertainly to assert itself. I liked the sense of oscillation between the sense of potential threat and the feeling of empathy or tenderness towards these looming yet vulnerable creatures. In the same way, House of Cards describes a form that both invites curiosity yet is somewhat intimidating, apparently precarious yet surprisingly resilient.