DVAA Member since 2024
Jonathan Sherwood
WEBsite: sherwood-digital-repository.org
About:
'Jonathan Sherwood' in this case refers to a metalworking sculptor from Pennsylvania.
I hail from a Philadelphia suburb near Jenkintown, a rather unremarkable place where many infrastructures are taken for granted despite their critical role, and as such I have been bothered by the disconnect between using technology and understanding its functions. Initially setting out to study architecture spurred on by grand visions of machine-cities, I altered course to pursue the more tactile field of metalworking.
I received my BFA in Sculpture from Pratt Institute in 2020 and have continued a practice from my garage studio while going about the search for wider involvement.
My overarching drive is searching for a balance of understanding and wonder in relation to the mechanical.
My daily life is mostly filled with fabricating, repairing, building, and maintaining the systems around me and my family.
Artist Statement:
My artwork seeks to signify times/places/conditions/maneuvers in or by which neither technology or humankind exerts undue controlling influence over the other, but that we share a confident and empathetic shaking of hands, disseminate information and resources, and evolve as one.
We care for the systems that care for us and the circle completes.
In service of such ideas I investigate traces of past infrastructures that persist and seem to call out that the current workings of the world are not all that was and far from what could be. This escalates into an intense desire to know something about everything, leading me into many fields of interest from botany and taxonomy to precision measurement and number systems. As I explore the inexhaustible facets of machinery, industry, communication, and scientific inquiry I draw many connections and beliefs about the complex relationships extant in our shaping of the world and, by effect, ourselves. I aspire to share the awe that comes with such moments of inter-connectivity.
This takes the form of enigmatic artifacts, representative samples of fabrication techniques past and present, and a speculative fiction scenario to unify the works.
