Tai Pomara

‘Untitled,’ bronze, stainless steel, aluminum.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is informed by machines, architecture, iconography, and dream experiences. Through a meticulous process of fabrication and an austere use of metals and mechanisms, I wish to draw the viewer both into the object (in a passive recognition of its inherent formal qualities) and away from the object (into an active role of deriving meaning and references). It is the cognitive and cultural operation of contextualizing experience that I am interested in. Although conscious processes of individuation, analysis, material and formal choices and control are evident, I do not deliberately place any single narrative or meaningful intent in the work. I wish to allow observers to independently form meaning and ideas that flow from their own identities and experiences.

Having said this, in my work I am often driven to attempt to identify with the history, romanticism, and emotion that drives the efforts and experience of the ‘partisan’ – individuals and groups confronted by the violence, dislocation and suffering resulting from the confrontation with overwhelming physical, political and economic power.