| Having the opportunity to work large scale has been such a gift to me. While it is much more challenging, logistically in particular, it is also much more rewarding. It is a blessing to have this degree of accuracy in terms of my vision—especially with respect to the nightmares on which most of my work has been formally based, the large scale makes so much more sense. Additionally, since my MO is to transform something negative (waste) into something positive (art) working large scale is ideal. The last piece was made from 9,000 bottles. The next one will be using closer to 11,000. | 
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Sarah Duke talks to Aurora Robson, a Brooklyn-based artist.
Sarah Duke: One of your next projects is a large-scale solo installation, The Great Indoors, at Rice Gallery. You also recently finished another large installation, What Goes Around Comes Around. This is quite a departure from your initial smaller sculptures. Has going from small sculptures to large-scale installations changed how you think about your work in ways you didn’t expect it to?
Aurora Robson: Having the opportunity to work large scale has been such a gift to me. While it is much more challenging, logistically in particular, it is also much more rewarding. It is a blessing to have this degree of accuracy in terms of my vision—especially with respect to the nightmares on which most of my work has been formally based, the large scale makes so much more sense. Additionally, since my MO is to transform something negative (waste) into something positive (art) working large scale is ideal. The last piece was made from 9,000 bottles. The next one will be using closer to 11,000.
Working at this scale has opened my process up to other people in a surprising way that I really enjoy. Throughout the fabrication of What Goes Around Comes Around I was able to employ other artists—which was an experience that I found incredibly gratifying. Now I am compelled to figure out how to fund more large-scale projects so that I can continue to make more sustainable art that economically sustains myself as well as other artists. It is funny, I used to lament about the labor-intensive aspect of my work, but it is a pretty fun process, and other artists seem to really enjoy helping me make these large pieces, so it may all work out for the best. The idea of a large-scale sculpture factory that reduces landfill, fills big public and private spaces with elaborate creations, and employs other artists in a way that they enjoy and can learn something—well, it has become a bit of a surprising obsession for me. In terms of how I think about my work now, I guess I am starting to think it could keep growing out of control if I am not careful. Like a crazy wild jungle full of weirdly malformed sea creatures, aliens, and hungry little micro-organisms. Perhaps that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It could reduce a lot of landfill and make a lot of lobbies a lot less painfully dull.
SD: You currently employ many materials that would otherwise have the fate of landing in a trash heap, but previously you were painting. Can you explain how this adoption of new materials came about?
AR: I am still painting, though not as much as I would like to be. I don’t think I will ever be able to give up painting. I love the practice. Painting is so sexy to me. Plus the activity of painting allows deeper investigation and meditation in terms of the forms. Painting takes time, but it also gives time. I tend to think of my paintings as sketches for sculptures that may or may not come into being.
My fixation with plastic bottles started one day half a decade ago when I was in my old studio in Brooklyn on Kent Avenue. I was working on some paintings in my ground-floor studio that was right across from a cement factory in what was a very industrial and desolate part of Williamsburg, when a littering of sparkly plastic bottles on the street caught my eye. I thought to myself how annoying and absurd it was that people just throw their trash on the street. Being Canadian and having grown up in Hawaii (both relatively pristine environments) I just can’t comprehend litter. It doesn’t compute for me. Anyway, the sparkly bottles kept distracting me—like when someone tries to get your attention with a mirror by reflecting the sunlight. I found myself spacing out on them, admiring their diaphanous nature, their diversity, and all their complex compound curves. That was when the idea struck me to continue what I was doing in my paintings with bottles. They are an ideal vehicle for my three-dimensional work since the forms in my nightmares have the same attributes. Plus, the material is free, lightweight, has archival integrity built into it, and is overabundant. I also really like the fact that the bottles are totally innocuous if you look at them independently of one another—but when you put them together in a gigantic mass, you suddenly have something potentially quite scary—like the Eastern Garbage Patch or a swarm of bees.
Junk mail is similar in terms of how it found its way into my work. I was so irritated by getting all these credit card applications in the mail—especially since I was so broke. I was offended and irritated by all this mail that had such a creepy personal tone and used such persuasive language, tapping into people’s desire and desperation. Ever think about how gross it is that these companies spend the money to print your name on those applications? Why not use that money for something a little bit more ethical. Just a suggestion. Anyway, fortunately, irritation creates mutation, which is a great recipe for transformation! So, this is what I do. I transform that which I detest into that which I love. In this practice, I am talking about the grand illusion of duality, about potential, possibility, and a few other things.
SD: There is a transformative aspect to this, taking the discarded and changing it into art. Do the organic forms in your sculptures reflect a hope to bring these things back into the world and give them a new life, a new purpose?
AR: There is definitely a Frankenstein thing going on in my work. It is as if I am trying to breathe life into these bottles to give them a life of their own as art instead of trash. It takes a lot of doing to make it work—entropy’s a bitch. I am not sure if the forms themselves reflect my hope, but I would definitely say my process does. The making of the forms is based on a few very specific principals. Hope isn’t really one of them, but they are all hopeful principals. They are: optimism, harmony, embracing the aberration, the laws of attraction, (i.e. like with like,) change occurring gradually and almost imperceptibly so that it can be sustained, and giving the individual components a lot of love, attention, and care. The end result is an object comprised of many smaller constituents that have been lovingly brought to their state, often by many diligent and caring hands. By respecting all the energy that went into the manufacturing of these bottles, and all the energy that goes into transforming them into art, I like to think that these sculptures serve a purpose and speak about a very specific moment in time.
SD: You make use of the Hawaiian slang for “eye goo,” Makapiapia, for one of your installations. In what other ways has growing up in Hawaii infiltrated your work?
AR: The experience of growing up in Hawaii deeply influenced my work on many levels. There are all sorts of exotic animals, bugs like giant fluorescent-colored deadly poisonous centipedes, fish, and plants that I was exposed to that snuck into my dreams and nightmares as a kid. I definitely draw from the amazing organic forms I was surrounded by growing up. They are part of my visual language now. There was also a great deal of racial tension in Hawaii that I had to contend with as a kid growing up there. It was brutal. I got beaten up a lot. I was definitely a minority and treated as one. Plus, my family life was pretty unorthodox so I was dealing with a lot of stress and friction there. I recently had the opportunity to go back and visit where I grew up on Maui, and found that things haven’t changed that much. I met someone who had to pull his daughter out of public school because she was getting beaten up all the time. Me, I stayed in public school and had to deal with it. In retrospect, I think it was an important experience for me because it taught me a lot about empathy and alienation, both of which now inform my work.
SD: Where do you draw inspiration from for the forms and structures of your work? Are these influences really diverse, or do you tend to focus on one initial source of inspiration?
AR: Formally, I try to stay as close to the nightmares as possible since they are the primary source for my inspiration. The nightmares took place when I was a small kid and that was quite a while ago now. Basically, I was trapped in this overpopulated landscape that was like a giant expanding chaotic knot, from which all these diaphanous creatures would continuously emerge. They were like bugs, plants, micro-organisms, paramecium, amoeba, bacteria, strings of DNA, quanta, and eerie Mickey Mousey creatures swirling and blossoming into other vaguely familiar shape-shifting organisms. In the nightmares, these creatures would be rushing towards me, threatening to suffocate me. It was really traumatic. Fortunately, since they were essentially abstract and they vaguely resembled so many other things in the universe, I get to study all these different organic forms in nature while still respecting the initial source of inspiration. I am essentially dissecting them, exploring the landscape to such a degree that all fear is drained out and I am left with a fun complex fantastical landscape. I have always been interested in overcoming fear and helping others do the same so my work gives me a great deal of joy.
A wonderful filmmaker friend of mine recently gave me an inspiring book called The Deep. It is full of all these amazing photographs of unusual deep-sea creatures, glowing squid and peculiar-looking asymmetrical fish. I also like to look at a book called What’s Out There for inspiration, a gift from another amazing friend. It has great photographs of situations occurring in outer space. I am interested in the grand scheme of things and existence. I try to keep in touch with what is really going on here, never mind all the inconsequential disputes and mini-dramas that tend to get reported and waste people’s precious time and energy.
