Object Alchemy

“When you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change.” — Max Planck, Quantum Physicist

My mixed-media assemblage sculptures draw on the limitless capacity of ordinary objects for the poetic. Through them I examine the linguistic and psychological shift that happens when assorted objects, each with its own history, meld together and take shape in novel forms — off script and unexpected, unbound from utility.

The objects initiate the process by hooking me. From my interaction and through discovery, they inspire and drive design. Composition and craft hold together the multiple components. Illusory devices make these resulting formations — conjured from my unconscious — appear seamless, as if the various parts belonged to each other.

My distinctive sculptures, from handheld to life-size, can evoke a kind of internal free association, engaging the viewer's own cultivated power to invent stories and to construct internal narratives for what they see.

Art is a work of magic, between the artist and the artwork, between the artwork and the viewer.

— Lee Hoag