STATEMENT

My work is based in self-reflection, observing and breaking down multifaceted, long held beliefs related to perceptions of separateness and connectedness. The investigation is realized through objects and installations utilizing and manipulating a multitude of materials in ways that often disguise their origin; seamlessly blurring the boundaries between the manufactured and the natural. I like to think of my work as fragments of a blown apart reality, reconstructed into a landscape – both physical and internal, where forms collide and conjoin in myriad nuance and potential.

As I work, I often envision bits of life, a torso, a tree, a wing, a wave or a cloud for instance, drawing on what I imagine beyond the studio walls but inherently “know” internally; memories, impressions and experiences, extracting and abstracting their essence, forming them into new iterations which reveal connections and push against expectations. The pieces can feel body-like, plastic, fragile or timeless – somehow familiar, somehow unknown.

Oftentimes, I build and saw apart my structures, over and over, cracking them open, adding materials and reconfiguring them to make anew. For me, this process physically reflects the continuum of life in every moment through deconstruction and transformation; knowing no moment, circumstance or person exists as a long term, permanent reality.  “… To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.” – Pema Chodron.

I’m interested in the silent, invisible lines of connection as words and definitions are never fully sufficient and that by virtue of the fact we give a thing a name, we immediately speak to what it is not – forming a sense of separateness. 

Some of my influences lie in the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods including Rubens, Bosch and Goya. My work engages and is entangled with this history as a mirror to the psyche and consciousness. 

“We are constantly creating the environment that creates us” – David Whyte

www.bonnyleibowitz.com