Cain Baum

I chase honesty when making my sculptural work and I ask myself what that feeling means throughout. The operation of this honesty is to benefit and make accessible the function and the irreal that coexist in my sculptures examining states of self, place and relationships. To do this I use organizational methods of placement, access and display to store accumulations of objects with histories found and developed. The work is also sequenced and able to be displayed in different iterations and layouts. Through this organization and series of accumulation I want to express and receive information that works as a vocabulary might. My process is intuitive and informed by study, so I show traces of known and recognizable interpretations paired with unknown and challenging moments that negotiate the understanding of the learning and knowledge accumulation process. You are to see what my objects and sculptures want, and they will instruct you to look; the objects are actors and structures and through linework and the use of my drawing material of wood I order objects that are autonomous to work as a unit. Forms and symbols, patterns, color and textures work with participating humans and animals, spaces of contemplation and imagination – they contribute to a scene. This scene can be located within the home; I see home as a universal place, with positive benefits, and there are the negative moments where the home breaks down without maintenance or presence. The scene is a version of daily life, rife with paradox, irreal moments, relationships of pleasure and abrasiveness.