Ex Nihilo / Improbable Objects
A major turn toward the object: digital works translated into physical form.
Ex Nihilo was a turning point. After years of working with virtual worlds, screens, networks and low-resolution images, I wanted to force the digital back into material form. The exhibition gathered works that translated mediated experience into fabricated objects: laser-cut forms, 3D prints, oil paintings, tapestries and other improbable translations.
This was never a rejection of digital art. It was a way of making the hidden materiality of digital culture visible. Every image has a substrate. Every file has a labor history. Every digital object eventually touches the world through screen, server, printer, loom, hand or machine.
Ex Nihilo begins the mature tapestry and machine-object period in my work. It is the point where the pixel becomes something you can stand in front of, touch, install and move around.