Ian Collings

Truthsayers

Aug 23

Written By Admin

TRUTHSAYERS

© The Future Perfect and Ian Collings, photo by Lou Mora.

According to Ian Collings, rocks hold the highest level of consciousness because they’ve been watching it all. As a material that Collings works with his hands, slowly and responsively, stone has so much to give; it is the most durational, physical embodiment of time, outlasting the oldest living things. Locked deep inside its matter are millennia of geological and human history. Collings treats his samplings as though they’ve had their own lives. He yields to their individual volitions, their physical constitutions often domineer- ing the artistic intention. The results are “not always pretty—which feels more honest. The stone is the teacher.”1 Collings’s general inclination is to accentuate the stone’s inherent pattern- ing by uncovering unique forms within, as in works like Berry Bowl. Other times, the results of his mark-making appear to quiver in motion.

At first, that may feel like a delightful contradiction to the material’s inherently still nature; rather, the effect can be experienced as sustained reverberations echoing the movement of time. Embracing this physicality has become a bigger and more important aspect of his practice, which more recently includes working less with rock merchants and going into the desert to cultivate the speci- mens himself instead. It is a constant dialogue, more of a paced collaboration than an intervention. It is in this way that Collings tries to escape the dislo- cation he feels within the acceleration of the human-built, human-centric world.

B. 1985, Virginia Beach, VA Lives and works in Ojai, CA
iancollings.com
@ian_collings