Subtracted Stairs

2023
Plaster
9 x 9 x 44 cm

Plaster sculptures exploring the formal element of the staircase and our mind’s ability to situate ourselves within a recognisable form. “If we find a mound in the forest,” Adolf Loos wrote in 1908, “formed into a pyramid shape by a shovel, we become serious and something within us says, ‘Someone lies buried here’. This is architecture.” Like cubes, spheres, and pyramids, a stair is fundamentally a Platonic form—given meaning through our physical engagement with it. While these sculptures are not habitable, our minds treat them as if they are—climbing their steps, rounding their corners; peeking over their edges—thus applying human agency onto an otherwise lifeless object. The forms are simultaneously abstract and familiar, with the continuous interplay between solidity and void exploring absence, presence, and how emptiness is made tangible.