Portfolio > INCOMPETENT ALCHEMIST | 2009 (click to expand project)

Theater of The Incompetent Alchemist
mixed media
installation dimensions variable
2009
Theater of The Incompetent Alchemist (Detail of Stage)
Milk Crates, Wood, Paint, Glass, Vinyl Tubing, Gold Leaf, Garbage, Gumball Machine.
48 x 48 x 48 inches
2009
Theater Of The Incompetent Alchemist (Detail of Glass Ball)
Three Months of Studio Sweepings in Blown Glass Ball
20 x 20 x 20 inches
2009
Theater of The Incompetent Alchemist (Detail of Gold)
Altered Gumball Machine, Vinyl Tubing, Gold Leaf
2009
Theater of The Incompetent Alchemist (Detail of Pull Cart)
Wood, Bronze, Paint, Feathers, Wheels, Horsehair, Kaleidoscope, Leather, Glass, Magic-Sculpt.
1 x 2 x 4 feet
2009
Theater of The Incompetent Alchemist (Detail of Bones)
Mouse Bones, Glass, Kaleidoscope
2009
Theater Of The Incompetent Alchemist (Detail of Supply Crate)
Milk Crate, Paint, Glass, Soap, Hair, Salt, Feathers, Garbage
2008
Theater Of The Incompetent Alchemist (Detail of Horns)
Cast Bronze
15 x 5 x 3 inches each
2009
Alchemy Study
Collage and pencil on papers
27 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches
2009
Barge (for George)
Collage on paper
19 1/2 x 27 1/2 inches
2009
The Hex
Collage on Illustration Board
14 x 20 inches
2014

This installation was inspired by a summer spent in Italy, and is an investigation of the role of the artist as alchemist. I collected garbage from my studio floor for three months, and siphoned the smallest sweepings into a blown-glass bauble. The bauble was mounted to an altered gumball machine, from which a tube coiled the shavings down onto a stage (where gold leaf spilled out at the end, tripped up by a trap door). Next to the stage a pull–cart rested, laden with arcane and banal ephemera: a hand-made bow and arrow, a bird skull mounted on a spike and protected by a bell jar, mouse bones in a glass jar with an accompanying kaleidoscopic “viewing apparatus,” and cast-bronze rams’ horns, molded by the artists’ hands. Behind these platforms a small crate sits on the floor, filled with replacements and supplies.

The installation is triangulated, in an echo of the required style in Renaissance-era painting, and evokes the mystical power of threes.

Photos: Jori Ketten