Access and Ambiguity (Door Project Installation)

Access and Ambiguity (Door Project Installation, 2000-2017

Access and Ambiguity, a body of work which has occupied much of my creative time for the first decade and a half of the 21st century, was the result of a chance encounter while participating in a teaching residency in Dublin Ireland.

In route to the National College of Art in Design, I came upon an old door protruding from a construction site dumpster. Often incorporating found objects in my work, I rescued the door from its fate, bringing it to my studio space at the college. The age of the door was indiscernible. Made of simple planks, it was encrusted with years’ worth of paint and varnish - attached to it were two crude and rusted iron hinges. Judging from appearances, it seemed ancient, as if the entire history of Ireland had accumulated upon its dark and richly patinated surface.

Over the following weeks I would gaze at the door, wondering about its mysterious history. At the same time, I continued to search for a connection to my Irish heritage. Both the history of the door as well as my ethnic roots proved equally enigmatic. Being second generation Irish-American, the search for my own Irish-ness was reflected in the unfathomable history of this door.

As the weeks of this tenure progressed, searches of the public records for documents of my Irish ancestors proved fruitless. In addition, immersion in Irish society only re-enforced a sense of otherness, separated from that history and culture. In the nation of my ancestors, I remained an outsider. Only Ghosts was the outcome, created out of that door. Only Ghosts, the first of the Access and Ambiguity series is the expression of that search for and ultimate separation from the roots of the remote past. The ghosts of those who came before me, my father, and his father, who I know only through scant anecdotes, haunt me and my efforts to trace the path of heritage. One can only speculate about those ancestors who remain forever inscrutable, access barred by a door of social, chronological and physical distances.

Only Ghosts became the anchor for Access and Ambiguity, a body of work that explores the door, its scale and/or proportions, its symbolism and paradoxical qualities of providing yet also barring access. The door is of a human scale. It is an object made by humans, more often than not, for humans. Therefore, the door, and or objects of similar scale and proportions imply human presence, intentions, interests and affairs. It is an object of action, in order to use the door one must open it, pass through the door. Conversely, in barring access, the door becomes active; preventing the action of those denied that access.

The works are executed on either real doors, or upon panels that are of door sizes, or relative proportion. The age of any door in not of as much concern as its physical properties or perhaps its original source. Often they have accumulated layers of paint, a patina of age that is fascinating in that, like the original Irish door, there is an implicit history. Often the textures and patterns of layered peeling paint serve as a starting point as they at times suggest the image upon which to elaborate. However, even when using fresh panels, painting is initiated with applying random layers of pigment. Again, the randomness of the resulting patterns becomes a jump off point to suggest the image. Often the ultimate images are usually a result of either my immediate or distant memories or past experiences that have been dredged up through the process of painting. Continuing in a formal direction, the doors are physical presences, very much objects unto themselves, and, as with much of work, I am fascinated with the on-going figure-ground dialogue. Dialogue, for this writer is preferable since dichotomy indicates an opposition or contradiction, which is not the goal. The formal objective is a communication between the materiality of the object(s) as well as a constant embrace of the dissolution and re-materialization of that physical presence. Hence, there are in stances with the ‘door-ness’ of the door is subverted, made transparent and less door-like and thus its ability to bar access thwarted. While at other times the door and its physical attributes as a door are given primacy, its presence very real.

Access and barrier, promise and deterrence, connection and division; the door is all of these. Its function is both utilitarian and conceptual. The door seals us in our protective dwellings, safe from the onslaughts of both nature and intruder. It marks the boundary between outer and inner, social and private. It reveals and conceals. Ultimately, it represents a frontier; a place where the external world meets the subjective perceptions of that experienced world and how those perceptions are mitigated through the lived body. The door both invites and bars engagement. In its scale, proportions and purpose the door speaks of a distinctly human world.