Artist statement
SCULPTOR-HUNTER-GATHERER
As a child, my favorite part of Daniel DeFoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe was when Crusoe builds a raft to ferry himself between shipwreck and island, gathering supplies and scouring for resources. I did this myself in 1996 when I came to the US with my wife and two young children. I arrived at the yet-to-become MASS MoCA in North Adams Massachusetts with very few tools and no materials. I immediately took inventory, mining derelict factory buildings for useful stuff, and set myself up in a make-do studio. Like Crusoe, I was a hunter-gatherer and immigrant, far from home, making the best of it. Physical distance provides a safe place to look back over time.
I grew up in a time and place where children were beaten by schoolteachers for simple failings, like not-knowing and struggling to learn. My work is autobiographical. Each one of my sculptures is a story from my childhood that came into focus as the sculpture itself took shape, entwined. Found and scavenged objects are often triggers, or guides. Chance encounters with unfamiliar yet recognizable objects can amplify memories. Recollections. Reconnections by collecting and assembling; gathering disparate parts.
Memory plays tricks. Things come in and out of focus. Making a sculpture is a way to hear a story differently, to listen better. To find a better understanding. I dig deep and find subjects I’d prefer to overlook. My sculptures hold them in view, makes the vague, and sometimes painful, concrete.
Richard Criddle, March 2021