8' x 9' x 12', 1000 styrofoam cups
site-specific installation for Drawing Rooms, Jersey City, NJ
“Disposable Habits” explores the beauty of humble materials from a formal perspective, but simultaneously raises the issues of permanency and the value of labor in art, as well as referencing environmental issues. This installation appears to drip from the windows into a floating sea of baroque swoops and curls which bubble to the sink like draining suds. The structure is visually seductive yet impedes movement through the room or to views beyond – this is the specter of the future, when our gluttony will literally glut our oceans, our air, our movement. The seemingly endless flow of consumption and disposal, that Styrofoam embodies so viscerally, permeates all of contemporary existence; incorporating that approach to art-making, as a consumption of materials and labor in the quest for new experience or event, provokes certain questions. Is it ever acceptable to be wasteful for the sake of pleasure? Is it possible to separate pleasure entirely from negative consequences? And are we willing to give up today’s pleasures to avoid the perils of our habits?