The Nuts and Bolts

Most of my work references the layers of thought from which we derive our moment-to-moment ideation, and here, rather than insert emotive or contemplative imagery as I often would, I decided to let the tools of my trade be the stand-ins. Mixed with bolts and screws and various tool-shop ephemera, analogous brushes and pencils are shown to serve a similar purpose. These are the unassuming vital fundaments of artwork construction, the 'nuts and bolts' of painting. Yet hidden behind these rudiments, looms the more complex machinery of creative drive and conscious impulse for which those tools are employed. I have always been enraptured by the very concept of tools. Tools, just like art, have a designed nature, unlike any naturally occurring thing. The tool derives its nature and value from its use, and that use is manifest intentionally by the creator of the tool. Yet there is also a strange disconnect here, in that the value of the tool is, itself, wholly contingent upon the value of its product. That is to say, what it does, rather than what it is. I am open to hearing a non-utilitarian argument for the relative value of 'tools', but I can't imagine one that makes much sense. Is a painting the same? If the painting is the ends, then what of the expression it may carry? Is the expression the ends? What then of the artwork itself, and its value. Upon what is this contingent? Perhaps, in this case, the expression is the ends, the painting is the means, and the various brushes and pigments used to create the painting are something both lesser and yet somehow nobler. They are the nuts and bolts that hold it all together. This is the small eddy of thought which compelled this piece.

Finalist Richeson Gallery 2025 Small Works Exhibition