‘Garfied’ is a mechanical, wall-mounted sculpture. The work is made from pale orange silicone which is stretched out like a traditional canvas, onto a galvanized steel frame. An electronic motor intermittently powers protruding hidden poles that poke and stretch the silicon out towards the viewer.
It will be installed on a temporary wall, blocking the audience from viewing the motor.

        The poking of the flesh-like silicone speaks to the urging ideas in your head, thoughts that won’t come to fruition, suppressed emotions, regrets about the past or general confusion about the state of the world. In a world which prioritizes the pursuit of perfection, the sudden halting of production and consumption throws us into an uncertain realm of stagnation.
        The motor is programmed to poke the silicone at irregular intervals, interfering like faraway thoughts that resurface unannounced, or the thrilling sensation of notifications sounding from our phones. There exists a tension between the materials; the silicone and the poles trying to push through. Some poles will only gently press, while some will stretch the silicon to the point of almost bursting through, reaching into the personal space of the viewer.
        Garfied hints at the conflicts and juxtapositions between hard & soft, interior & exterior, violent & passive, revealing & concealing. It has all the aesthetic virtues of traditional artwork,  being framed, and presented as any classical painting might be. We realize however, that everything about the work is synthetic, the 'sentient' animated limbs are simply programmed poles, the 'skin' is a hopeless emulation, even the wall on which the work is hung is a fabrication used to disguise the mechanics of the work.
        Erotic and sentient but nontheless mechanical, artificial. Like the act of desiring something you cannot have, the extended arm met with a slap on the wrist. The work moves forward towards the viewer, there is the desire to touch it back, but we are not allowed to touch artwork.