ARTIST STATEMENT

Artist Statement
John R. G. Roth
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After the invasion of Iraq, and my recent move to Norfolk, Virginia — a major military hub — my sculpture increasingly has been informed by thoughts about resources, commodities and consumption and their relationship to politics, world order and the natural environment. Several of these pieces have taken the form of “3-D political cartoons,” satirical one-liners intended to convey a pointed message. My work, on the whole, is far less prosaic and calls for the viewer’s co-authorship.  The genesis of recent work is not so much a departure from earlier investigations as an outgrowth. While living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan as an undergrad, I observed the vestiges of the mining industry. The juxtaposition of extractive contrivances with their bucolic, boreal environments fed my interest in 19th century industrial architecture particularly as captured in the photographic typologies of Bernd and Hilla Becher. My sculpture/furniture hybrids evolved into a series I call “Speculative Naval Architecture.” Absurd ship models sometimes reflect my visceral response to the anthropomorphic aspects of machinery, vehicles, and buildings and sometimes serve as metaphors for my reflections upon conveyance and modes of communication.  Consideration of that nexus between instinct and intellect, and autobiographical events such as the death of my father and the birth of my daughter, inspired individual pieces. Current work explores the folly of material acquisition and accumulation, particularly brought home to me during my move. However, it was never my intention to create works that read as personal narrative. Insofar as they are reflective of a world-view, that view also is subjected to the prism of dream and fantasy. My use of the kind of decorative and functional details that are found on Industrial Age factories and mines, public utility buildings, machines and, particularly, marine vessels has the effect of making the fanciful somehow familiar, calling into question considerations of past and future when contemplating the present.

The presentation of my sculpture involves ongoing internal deliberation. I frequently encase my work in traditionally crafted furniture forms or dioramic display cabinets that have the power to add or detract from its thesis. I am interested in expanding the range of materials and processes I use in fabrication, in part to investigate ways of freeing my sculptural forms from enclosure and its implications, and in part to explore options in scale and locale.