Building Forever
Building Forever features sculpture and drawings that work together to meditate on the myth of progress through the lens of fatherhood. The work in this exhibition is the product of a unification strategy in the artist’s studio practice whereby the sculptures are created from drawings that in turn generate drawings, perpetuating a cycle of generation and furtive mutation. The sculpture materials are all lightweight, drawn on and patently fake - papier mache, vinyl flooring and plaster with surface drawing of ink and watercolor; the drawings are large format studies in bright surface color articulated in black ink.
This work is heavily influenced in form and spirit by Collins’s own experience as middle-aged father. Says Collins: “My experience as a dad seems to generate a feeling of absurd impossibility that somehow works. On paper I am master of plans toward concrete ends, but in reality I feel like I’m juggling a raft of moving parts on a surging river. In these works I am trying to pick one spot, one daily provisional experience and build a castle on it by capturing that idea in a drawing. By then making them physically real as sculpture I’m hoping to force these worlds to knock against each other and create stories that then feed back into the drawings. This time of my life seems vital, hilarious and scattered and I'm trying to reflect that with the work."
Paul Collins is a graduate of Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH) and Yale University (New Haven, CT) where he received his Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art, and his Master of Fine Art, Painting and Printmaking, respectively. He participated in the artists residency program at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Skowhegan, ME) and exhibits nationally.