Born Again Road Kill - Behind the Art

Personal Inspiration

While walking the streets of New York City, my eye would often be drawn to random scraps on the street. It took awhile before I was compelled enough to pick them up, dust them off, and put them in my pocket. But soon I couldn't resist - even though I got some strange stares! I have been discovering these parts on the streets of NYC, like an archaeologist, ever since. I recycle them into ﬁgures reminiscent of humans, animals and imagined life forms. Once rearranged, they are bronzed into immortality and receive a patina reminiscent of their original hue.

The BARK are the conversion of “accidental metals” into a ﬁgurative sculpture that oscillates between being recognized as their insigniﬁcant, mechanical parts and a ﬁnal composite state as a “celebrity”. A BARK starts their life as human-made objects: vehicle parts, cans, tools, equipment, utensils, etc. They land, by chance, on the street and experience a car accident. The accident distorts their original form and destroys their intended function.

Evolution of the Idea

Overtime, I amassed a large collection of pieces. I started laying them out, like puzzle pieces, and waited for them to "speak" to me. Soon figures started forming ... I documented the figures by photgraphing each piece in place. Imagining them as small bronze sculpures, I shared them with a sculptor friend. He suggested bringing the documentation and pieces to his foundry in Thailand to be bronzed. It was an exciting process as I had never worked in bronze and very minimally in sculpture.

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3D scans in preparation for 3D printing

Original directions sent to Thailand fabricator

Connection to Previous Work

Born Again Road Kill grows out of my interest in transformation and the peripheral. In earlier works I used found objects in collages and small sculptural experiments. My photography also focused on what most people pass by — street markings, textures, and oddities that hold visual weight. Chance and accident have always played a role, from Mail Art to digital drawing. New York has been the constant backdrop, shaping the way I see and work. BARK carries these threads into sculpture, giving discarded fragments new form and continuing my exploration of the figure as both shape and abstraction.

Artistic Challenges

Working in a new medium came with challenges. The parts didn’t translate directly into bronze. Some widths had to be adjusted. Connection points needed refining so they could be soldered together. The patina added another layer of complexity. Matching the original colors of the parts meant a lot of testing.

For the NYCxDESIGNxSOUVENIR exhibition, I wanted to bring a modern production approach. I had the sculptures 3D scanned and printed. There wasn’t time to finish the patinas for that show, but that step is planned for the next version.

Impact and Message

In BARK, everyday mechanical parts which were transformed by vehicular impacts, are reimagined as imaginative characters, blending their humble origins with new life. These pieces tell the story of discarded materials, elevated and reinterpreted as art.

These forgotten treasures were reinterpreting through a creative process that transformed the trampled into something beautiful. This series invites viewers to recognize the hidden creative potential in their surroundings and to engage with urban transformation.

Maybe you owned one of the pieces that was transformed into a Born Again Road Kill sculpture ... or drove over it? Like our own origins, the origins and true history of a BARK's components will never be known.

Fabricator scanning the original bronzes

3D printed version of the bronze, before patina