Going Super Simple: Evolution and the Unconscious

I've been experimenting with spare, lean, simple shapes. I would like to continue working on these and try to create them in larger iterations. I think there's surprising strength to the thin linear forms.

This idea is a bit of a departure for me because I've been struggling for about a year to express space in three dimensions. As I look more at these pieces it occurs to me that they are still strongly dimensional, but that the space-filling characteristic is more refined, somehow understated.

I still like the idea of making these modular, including at least two pieces in each sculpture. There always seems to be an unexpected conversation between the pieces that I think adds to the strangeness of the sculpture.

In studying and teaching plant evolution for a long time I've come to learn that plants evolve by simplifying, streamlining, and fusing their parts together. Maybe this is an expression of that realization.

If that's the case then it's saying something pretty amazing for the unconscious mind of a scientist-artist. It suggests that I've observed plants doing a physical thing (simplifying), modeled that activity intellectually "plants evolve by simplifying..." and then in my unconscious-driven sculpture started to re-enact plant evolution by creating physical objects that are simplified, streamlined, and fused.