Ariel Wood rest, raze, cullect

‘rest, raze, cullect,’ brings together three bodies of work, interconnected, and interrelated, yet each inspired by a particular infrastructural situ. Transplanting them together here showcases material shifts over time and conceptual throughlines. Utility boxes on the corners of streets become cage-like shower stalls and water towers. Water main access pipes stretch upwards like pillars and lamp posts. Ceramic pipes and vessels rest in their steel holds, face and connect the walls, or drop in blue, acrylic suspension from the ceiling. These ceramic pipes are lifted off the ground on specifically fabricated black platforms; a nod to the unique floor-to-wall relationship of the John M. O’Quinn gallery. 

In my practice, I make objects and structures evoking plumbing and drainage.  I inhabit this formal lexicon to speak to an underlying interconnectedness and a celebration of queerness. This system of infrastructure is inherently physical — its fluidity requires the utmost connection between parts — as well as political. How the human body encounters a bathroom, and more specifically a public restroom, is especially charged as these spaces purport to demonstrate gender, intimacy, privacy, and hygiene. This mix of physical materiality and sociopolitical pressures gives plumbing an implicit set of relationships that I work to manipulate, emphasize, and transgress. Working primarily with ceramic, metal, wood, silicone, and paper, I am drawn to aspects of plumbing that appear strange, silly, or sentimental. 

Passing for art and passing for infrastructure, I view much of my practice as embodied slippage. This concept—passing—is key to my practice. Passing details a level of fabrication that can be awkward at times and flamboyant at others—below the radar or proudly declarative. My work plays within this performance, initially reading as familiar and ubiquitous, and on closer inspection, revealing itself to be particular, modeled; possibly functional, yet not functioning. Perception pulled apart, rearranged, slowed down. Perhaps these qualities can then extend beyond the art object, to our built and lived environment.

Featured image: access, 3b (detail), 2023, ceramic, wood, steel, paper-maché clay, sealant, concrete, vinyl, latex, 17.5 x 94 x 22”. Image courtesy of the artist. 

Ariel Wood is a Texas-based artist by way of California and Wisconsin. They received a BFA in printmaking and drawing from The University of Wisconsin, Madison 2016, a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from Santa Reparata International School Of Art, in Florence 2016, and their MFA in Sculpture from The University of Texas at Austin 2022, where they were the recipient of the Lomis Slaughter, Jr. Endowment Scholarship In Sculpture and the Continuing College Fellowship. In 2022, Wood attended Watershed Ceramics’ Summer Residency and in 2023, they were a finalist for the Alice C. Cole Fellowship. Ariel Wood is a sculpture artist, educator, and member of MASS Gallery. They have exhibited their work nationally and internationally in Wisconsin, Illinois, Texas, New York, and Florence, Italy.