Archive Inland Specific: Installations by artists of the San Gabriel Valley

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Annabelle Aylmer

The psychological artifact that is the self (me) rebels at the briefest encounter with the possibility of corporeal annihilation. Without truly being able to comprehend my own lack of existence, I nonetheless feel constant intimations of it. This drives my interest in blending the technological with the organic.

I am attracted to the precision of mechanical technology, the shiny geometry of machines. As I contemplate the self-replicating aspect of the machine, or a machine with fleshly attributes, this suggests to me the notion of biologic permanence.

While the mechanical signals order, strength and endurance, and implies protection from chaotic forces, it also represents the intractability of logic, the unthinking devotion to a particular task with no sensitivity to individual cases. This dichotomy resonates in my work and often results in absurd configurations of technology and organic matter that express the tension of this dilemma.

The tree refers to the organic world, the world of flesh as well as plant matter, growth and decay. Biologic cycles may follow general tendencies, but precision is not the rule; there are underlying, calculable patterns to the physical world, but there is still an awkwardness and randomness to organic growth, the result of which is the particularity of each object.

As Claremont is the City of Trees, it seems appropriate to express these ideas locally with local resources; the trees used in this installation grew and died within the boundaries of the community.

Annabelle Aylmer