2011
Brass (0.2 mm) and
photo-etched, mirror,
acrylic (5 mm), 72 x 46 x 46 cm

Immersive Ornament is a call to arms in the face of a bland modernism and a longing to reactivate the articulate qualities within the construct of the ornament. A little bit over 100 years ago, Adolf Loss wrote his seminal work, titled ornament and crime, a text that banned the “immoral” ornament from architecture and gave passage to a generation of admirers of Losses “passion for smooth and precious surfaces” –  a generation of modernism. One key argument in the work of Adolf Loos was formed around the waste of energy and material to decorate the object and render it fashionable or belonging to a time and taste, rather than focusing on the functions of the object in itself and detaching it from a cultural social context.

Immersive Ornament is a reactivation of qualities found in traditional Islamic and Persian patterns in an amalgamated, constructed  3 dimension language. This amalgamation of pattern, that, devoid of narration and pictorial elements, incorporates mathematical precision and repetition as a religious-cultural value – famously portrait by Owen Wilson and analyzed by Keith Critchlow and best seen in the elaborate 2 and 3-dimensional works of the Alhambra.

Within the work, these patterns act beyond a decorative 2-dimensional context and create a self-referential 3 dimensional folded space without the loss of material – a framing space where mere functionality is challenged. The elaborate ornamental metal structure frames a void, leaving an idea of unfinished  – a void articulation and elaboration or an attempt to frame the profane.