Little Room Where Everything Happens – the exhibition title translated from Italian – is a group of three sculptures and two works on paper that I conceived to interact with the characteristics of the room where they were to be installed, for the room contains a large window that one inescapably notices walking into the space. Looking out to an urban view of a city anchored me to the notion of time and place in connection to the world outside, which set the tone for the work, and the title of the show.

These sculptures continue to explore the concept I’ve been preoccupied with since my very first show No Logo at West LA College in 2015, where I deconstructed and reconfigured shopping bags into sculptures, flipping the paper-made bags inside out, outside in, while addressing the lack of individuality in the marketplace, in an installation mimicking a runway fashion show. Then the exhibition, Planes And Structures in 2017 at 18th street Art Center, I used flat pieces of aluminum sheets to construct shapes instead of starting with containers (bags), also to address the notion “is there in fact such thing as a ‘right side’?” by interchanging the front and back, challenging the separation we make automatically of the two sides, front and back.

The sculptures in this exhibition, using the same aluminum sheets as a base for structure, still play with the similar dichotomies, inside or out, front or back, as the sides switch places and order. While it’s not obvious that the sculptures started with a two dimensional material (although we all know that a two dimensional object doesn’t exist); and unlike beginning with solid volumes as in traditional sculpture making, this material being thin and malleable also seemed to be about drawing, in that I relied on intuitive and quick decision making, similar to my process of drawing. The flat surface that reminded me of paper just lent itself to draw through space and time moving this time, with more mass. And noticing this, I wanted the sculptures to contain equally importantly negative forms as positive ones (in a Euclidean space), working together in harmony: negative and positive space seemed to me another dichotomy I could question through my sculpture making.

The title of each work is in Italian for I was envisioning a particular room that belonged to my apartment in Milan, which was also in a high rise with a wide unobstructed view of the city.