Hammered Earth

This work marks the beginning of an exploration into what it means to work alongside material and honor its inherent will. However, I chose to begin this inquiry by deliberately working against the material - the forest floor - by hammering strips of copper into the ground to create reliefs of areas where I work or harvest wood. This absurd, futile gesture of beating the land into submission encapsulates the struggle that ensues as a result of exploiting or demanding something from natural spaces as opposed to trying to work alongside them. What remains from these gestures are strips of badly beaten lengths of copper that are illegible when taken out of context of the forest floor.

copper. (2021)