OPUNTIA CONCRETUS
Humanity is built on the foundations of group interaction and support. Like many man-made and natural creations, there is often an underlying framework and multiple parts doing their share to balance and support the main system, be that a literal building, a cactus, or society as a whole. While individualism may be how we identify ourselves, we identify our relations with others based on the roles we take when participating in the same group environments.
OPUNTIA CONCRETUS embodies the ingenuity and hardiness that humans are known for. The abstraction of the cactus, an icon for westward expansion and exploration, is how the piece responds to this way of viewing our culture via material and structure. Balancing a welded form underneath layers of burned cardboard, chicken wire, and concrete (all of which are man’s own creations) OPUNTIA CONCRETUS is stable, and growing towards a future it cannot yet determine, much like a cactus growing towards the sun.
