My professional work is about visceral effect. In an independent self-initiated design practice, I explore space, light, and the integration of structure and form with an aim to create a powerful moment of visual stillness and emotional connection for the viewer. Concepts are driven by reduction and revolution. Processes are formally and materially experimental. Outcomes are designed objects—of minimal form—that serve as a medium to influence visual perception.

I cultivated an interest in spatial effects of the built environment during graduate studies in architecture, and have since brought this interest back in connection to earlier pursuits in industrial design. I have discovered that design at the scale of object offers freedom to pursue the purity of design elements without compromise or convolution. At the object scale I am free to experiment in a focused way, isolating fundamental concepts, which are executed at a one-to-one scale.

Throughout my career, I have strived to challenge product design archetypes by creating compelling and unexpected solutions to familiar objects. As an example, nesting table, 3:1, 2010, challenges the expectation that this multi-piece furniture typology must be formed like a Russian doll, whereby smaller versions of identical forms slide into each other from a single direction. Alternatively, 3:1 offers three distinct tables that nest in three-dimensions. Each piece stands on its own as a functional sculptural object; all three pieces come together to form a cube, or to interact in flexible compositions.

My first lighting object, 45, 2011, is an innovation of both archetype and technology. This work utilizes the slim nature of an LED strip by embedding a continuous light source within the narrowest possible aluminum channel. Composed as a 45° triangle, 45 is designed to rest against—and to reflect light from—a vertical surface. Since the completion and international exhibition of 45, I have engaged in a series of lighting projects, also composed of experimental geometric frameworks, which encase, reflect, and support the interaction of different colors of light. The resulting effect is intended to offer the viewer a singular moment of pause and retrospection.

In 2015, 45, was featured in a solo exhibition of London-based energy, sound, and light artist Haroon Mirza in the Jean Tinguely Museum in Basel Switzerland, along with works by Alexander Calder and Anish Kapoor. My lighting and object work has additionally been accepted for exhibition at Salone de Mobile in Milan, Maison et Objet, Paris, and the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, New York.

With a practice that exists at the boundaries of art and design, my aim is increasingly to make objects free of connotation. My work is designed to give reprieve; a second of meditation or clarity. Recent projects have been informed by an ancient Japanese spatial concept, Ma. Referring to a consciousness of place, Ma translates to pause or space and implies the void between all things. Both Y Table and Optigons are pure demonstrations of defining and activating space. Y Table being a re-organization of the structural elements of a side table and Optigons playing with perception by creating three-dimensional objects that may be perceived as graphic compositions, flipping back and forth between dimensions.

Although I work in the realm of objects, my interest is void. I am a designer of the negative. Rather than using material to craft something, I use it to craft nothing, and I believe that this nothing is as important as the something that surrounds it. The intent of my practice is a continued pursuit of crafting potent space using matter and light in order to facilitate introspection and thought.