Between Distance and Proximity

My artistic practice has long been rooted in sculpture and kinetic installation, shaped by an interest in the materiality of dreams, memory, and urban transformation. In earlier works, I constructed playful and spontaneous forms from found materials, drawing inspiration from fragments of the city to build imagined systems that hover between familiarity and abstraction. These works explored how objects carry traces of time, inviting viewers to encounter layered narratives embedded within material culture.

In recent years, my practice has evolved toward examining patterned behaviours within urban environments. I have become increasingly attentive to the subtle rhythms that structure everyday life, repetition, routine, and shared space, and how they shape human experience. This shift has led me to incorporate digital technologies such as parametric modelling, 3D scanning, and digital fabrication. Through these tools, I investigate how systems, both mechanical and social, can be translated into sculptural form, allowing data, movement, and structure to materialize as physical objects.

Central to my current research is the tension between emotional distance and physical closeness in contemporary cities. Urban life compels individuals to exist in constant proximity: we commute together, work side by side, and share public and private infrastructures. Yet these encounters often unfold without meaningful connection. Bodies align in space while remaining worlds apart. It is within this paradox, simultaneous nearness and separation, that my work seeks to linger.

During my residency in Oshawa, I will develop Restructuring Echoes, a sculptural project that reflects the city’s transition from an industrial to a post-industrial landscape. Drawing on Oshawa’s layered history, from the craftsmanship of the Williams Piano Company to its deep ties with General Motors, I will work with collected mechanical components that are digitally altered and reconstructed through processes such as 3D printing, CNC milling, laser cutting, and lathe work. By merging digital fabrication with traditional manufacturing techniques, the project mirrors the city’s evolving identity.

Conceptually grounded in urbanism, post-war memory, and deindustrialization, the work examines how machinery, labour, and space shape collective and generational narratives. I am particularly drawn to Oshawa’s Ojibwa root, aaz haway, meaning “a crossing place.” This origin offers a poetic framework for understanding the city as a site of convergence, where histories, industries, and cultures overlap, and where transitions remain ongoing rather than complete.

As I develop this body of work, I am interested in how industrial rhythms continue to resonate within contemporary life. The repetition of factory shifts finds echoes in commuting patterns and daily routines, forming a choreography of parallel movement. Through abstract visual rhythm and compositional fragmentation, my sculptures aim to evoke a state of suspended transformation, where presence and absence, connection and detachment, structure and vulnerability coexist.

Each sculptural piece functions as both monument and residue, mapping the tension between collapse and regeneration. Together, these works invite reflection on how urban environments shape not only the spaces we inhabit, but also the ways we navigate distance, proximity, and belonging within them.

1. Title: Social Distancing
Year: 2023
Size: Width: 30”, Length:  40”, Height: 84” 
Materials: Mild steel plates and tubings, casters, tennis ball toy

2. Title: Strange Traces 异踪
Year: 2024
Dimensions:  Width: 12″, Length: 12″, Thickness: 4″
Media: Drywall compound, clay, paint

3. Title: State of Disorder
Year: 2023
Dimensions: Width: 10″, Length: 5″, Height: 65″
Media: Insulating foam, steel tubes, bricks, and pipe clamps.

4. Title: Tender Scars
Year: 2023
Dimensions:  Width: 30″, Length: 30″, Thickness: 5″
Media: Drywall compound, 3D printed mold, paint