KIPPLE.
Kipple pays homage to the object and its collector. This work’s nomenclature follows Philip K. Dick’s novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, where ‘kipple’ refers to the clutter of useless junk that reproduces itself when your back is turned. However, born from a lineage of collectors, I have always found a sense of comfort and vulnerability amongst the clutter.
Kipple is composed as a series of mobile structures suspending objects based on experiences, thoughts, and relics from my own trove of things. Childhood toys, teapots from my great-grandmother, and even old birthday cards. Over the years, these items have grown in sentiment, filling my home and shaped its space – shaped me. Their beings often synonymous with memory. Objects removed from their respective realities adopt new identities amongst others in the collection but their own histories unforgotten.
Kipple is made from various clay bodies, underglaze, glaze, papier-mâché, plastic, and steel wiring. Each process of Kipple‘s making has influenced its next iteration. Materials reworked and recycled, a tension is found between the object and non-object. As their forms hold memories of their making and history, Kipple illustrates the life of its artist. In this whimsical array, may the viewer find fondness and give ode to the autonomy of the mundane object.
