Pattern, repetition within formal visual language and material culture
Test Patterns is a series of stacked sculptures created from folded wallpaper. It uses the formal visual language of traditional wallpaper designs, and obsessive, repetitive strategies of post-minimal sculpture in a consideration of private domestic space, order and disorder. The sculptures are accompanied by a series of 120 collages entitled Scientific Explanation, made from a book of the same title.

Test Patterns · Installation view, Eye Level Gallery, Halifax, 2000

Ovoid Drum · Folded paper, stacked, 61 × 60 × 81 cm, from the group exhibition Canada Darling, Burnished Chariot Gallery, New London Connecticut, 2002

Test Patterns · Eye Level Gallery, detail, showing 3 of 5 different papers, 2000

Drums · Folded paper, stacked, 63.5 × 51 cm each, from the group exhibition Canada Darling, Burnished Chariot Gallery, New London Connecticut, 2002

Drums · Folded paper, stacked (paper on right is Acorn, William Morris), 63.5 × 51 cm each, 2000

Peach Drum · Folded paper, stacked, 63.5 × 51 cm, 2000

Scientific Explanation · collage (from a series of 120), paper, 20.3 × 15cm, 2000

Scientific Explanation · collage (from a series of 120), paper, 20.3 × 15cm, 2000
A sett is the woven structure or sequence of coloured threads in a tartan. Each tartan has a specific sett. A sett also refers to the stone cobbles that pave the streets of Edinburgh. The word provides a metaphor and physical structure for these works, in which words, patterns, colours, and shapes are brought together in an examination of place, history, heritage and identity.

Setts · Installation view, from Setts and Impositions, Gallery 44, Toronto, 2004

Setts · Installation view of shelf, from Setts, Struts Gallery, Sackville, New Brunswick, 2003

Setts · Installation view of 4 digital prints, from Setts, Struts Gallery, Sackville, New Brunswick, 101 × 66 cm each, 2003

Setts · Installation view of 2 digital prints, from Setts and Impositions, Gallery 44, Toronto, 101 × 66 cm each, made by scanning tartan kilts and adding text elements, 2004

Setts · detail of digital print made by scanning tartan kilt, and adding alternating text elements from Sir Walter Scott and Ian Rankin, forming a mesostic with my last name, 2003

Setts · detail of digital print made by scanning tartan kilt, and adding alternating text elements from Sir Walter Scott and Ian Rankin, forming a mesostic with my last name, 2003

Setts · Installation view of 2 digital prints, from Setts and Impositions, Gallery 44, Toronto, 101 × 66 cm each, made by scanning tartan ties, and adding text elements, 2004

Setts · detail of digital print made by scanning tartan tie, and adding alternating text elements from Sir Walter Scott and Ian Rankin, forming a mesostic with my last name, 2003

Setts · Installation view, from Setts, Struts Gallery, Sackville New Brunswick, painted boxboard, plywood, 2003

Setts · detail from Setts, Struts Gallery, Sackville New Brunswick, painted boxboard, plywood, 2003