| Utilizing germinal, historical, and scientific references as a conceptual base is typical of my approach to sculpting in multi-mediums. In 1969, NASA put Neil Armstrong on the moon, I read H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, and our family visited the Aztec archeological site, Temple of the Sun and Moon in Teotihuacán, Mexico. These occurrences represented polar-opposite moments of time and space, leaving a tremendous impression on me that continues to influence my work. In 2005 I journeyed to NASA, Cape Canaveral, to research the industrial and scientific apparatus used to launch a vehicle for searching the unknown of space. This is where science reaches a pinnacle in the quest for the future evolution of mankind. | 
|
Allan Packer is a Canadian artist based in Seattle.
Utilizing germinal, historical, and scientific references as a conceptual base is typical of my approach to sculpting in multi-mediums. In 1969, NASA put Neil Armstrong on the moon, I read H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, and our family visited the Aztec archeological site, Temple of the Sun and Moon in Teotihuacán, Mexico. These occurrences represented polar-opposite moments of time and space, leaving a tremendous impression on me that continues to influence my work.
In 2005 I journeyed to NASA, Cape Canaveral, to research color, materials, texture, and to get a feel of the industrial and scientific apparatus used to launch a vehicle for searching the unknown of space. This is where science reaches a pinnacle in the quest for the future evolution of mankind. Capturing this quest and referencing the tactile parts of the shuttle program are evident in the sculpture, Time Machine (2007).
Using time as a medium in Celestial Clock (2007), the ravens are cast in plastic, mimicking precious gems. Here the raven symbolizes the celestial bodies, the 8 planets. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss proposed a structuralist theory that suggests the raven obtained mythic status because he was a mediator animal between life and death. The motorized device derives from the 18th century apparatus of an Orrery and the hierarchical taxonomy of a tree structure. The clock spins at 1 rpm based on Julian time as opposed to the Gregorian calendar.
Glacier (2006) addresses the relationship between mediums and how we read two- and three-dimensional objects. Using strategic optical illusion, planned maneuvering of materials, and a subterfuge of textures, I endeavor to agitate the psychological dimensions of a viewer’s understandings, attempting to change the general assumptions commonly, and unquestioningly, assigned as obvious referents, characteristics, symbols, and spirits of various images and assorted matter.
As all of the work in this series dealing with time, space, and the question of reality, Knossos (2008) is based on the archeological discovery of an unknown civilization—the Minoan’s. Knossos depicts a scene from the future looking back in time.Employing production techniques from theater and industry, my work is fabricated from an assembly of multiple—purposefully dissimilar—components, tricking the viewer with mediums that are in fact other mediums that ultimately question reality.
