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Fence Cuts (2008)

 

The fence cuts began in response to graffiti removal; abstract and seemingly random geometric shapes that are painted over graffiti and are appearing in more regularity as cities regulate who gets to communicate and where that communication happens.  Thinking of graffiti removal as the act of creating unknowable spaces or voids in urban cities, the fence cuts create similar voids, however they actually open up the city both physically and visually.  The abundance of chain-link fences around abandoned properties in Buffalo attempts to keep you out but allows you to see what is on the other side.  The phenomenon of trees growing through these fences charges that particular pieces of fence with a sense of duration and history, and of a re-appropriation of space and highlights these occurrences as common aesthetic experience.

 

Exhibition history:    Tangential Reform, University at Buffalo Gallery, Buffalo, 2008, NY