MEL BENNETT

My favorite part about working with steel and other found materials is the inevitable adventure. 

 

A scrapyard is a place where things go to be forgotten, disposed of, and buried. It is a potter's field of items disregarded. At the start of their lives, these objects were tediously built, prepared, and completed. As heavy machinery stomps and shouts about the accumulated mounds of forgotten goods, I feel a sense of undertaking. Sifting through piles of gnarled, chopped up bits feels delightfully dangerous like I am breaking some sort of rule.  Similar to the pirate and a chest full of treasures, the rush comes when I find the perfect lot of "scraps”.

 

In the studio, it’s my job to breathe life back into the lifeless, like bodies in a morgue. The ancestry behind the timeworn metals captivates me. I can only imagine the life it once lived, and the number of hands and eyes that have passed over each piece. But now here is sits, in mine, waiting to be made into something that thrives once again.

 

The subject matter of my work is based on my encounters where the presence of life is at its greatest. It is my hope that viewers will experience the composition of lifelessness into living. I want to remind us to appreciate the splendor in the abandoned while being reminded still of the vivacity of life, old and new.