Second Skin / Second Life.
Cardinal Red Studio
Virginia USA 2025-2026
Second Skin / Second Life.
Paper, cardboard, glass, and plastic operate as the outer “skin” of the product, a sheath that must be pierced, peeled, or discarded to access its contents. In this project, however, such residual matter is not rejected. Instead, it becomes the internal framework, the skeleton and musculature, of the sculptural form.
The notion of the “second skin” refers to the process by which this accumulated detritus is consolidated into coherent, embodied structures. Waste materials are initially gathered in refuse bags, the conventional site of their containment. Rather than functioning as a terminal destination, however, the bag becomes an active compositional device. Within and through this enclosure, materials are arranged, compressed, and shaped. A subsequent layer of stretch-wrap film binds the form into permanence. The first skin loosely aggregates; the second tightly coheres. Through this dual encasement, ephemeral refuse is stabilised into a resolved sculptural entity.
Cardinal Red Studio
Virginia USA 2025-2026
Second Skin / Second Life.
Paper, cardboard, glass, and plastic operate as the outer “skin” of the product, a sheath that must be pierced, peeled, or discarded to access its contents. In this project, however, such residual matter is not rejected. Instead, it becomes the internal framework, the skeleton and musculature, of the sculptural form.
The notion of the “second skin” refers to the process by which this accumulated detritus is consolidated into coherent, embodied structures. Waste materials are initially gathered in refuse bags, the conventional site of their containment. Rather than functioning as a terminal destination, however, the bag becomes an active compositional device. Within and through this enclosure, materials are arranged, compressed, and shaped. A subsequent layer of stretch-wrap film binds the form into permanence. The first skin loosely aggregates; the second tightly coheres. Through this dual encasement, ephemeral refuse is stabilised into a resolved sculptural entity.
Second Skin / Second Life: Calve. Alternative images and pre-sculpted raw material.
Found objects / recycled materials.
The act of wrapping has been present in my installation practice since my earliest engagement with the genre. In Second Skin / Second Life, however, it assumes renewed conceptual urgency. The found objects employed are exclusively discarded packaging, materials that, until recent shifts in recycling policy, I would have sorted for collection and removal. Their redeployment within sculpture thus embeds an environmental dimension within the work. The transformation of waste into form is not merely aesthetic but ideological, foregrounding questions of consumption, value, and afterlife.
The act of wrapping has been present in my installation practice since my earliest engagement with the genre. In Second Skin / Second Life, however, it assumes renewed conceptual urgency. The found objects employed are exclusively discarded packaging, materials that, until recent shifts in recycling policy, I would have sorted for collection and removal. Their redeployment within sculpture thus embeds an environmental dimension within the work. The transformation of waste into form is not merely aesthetic but ideological, foregrounding questions of consumption, value, and afterlife.
Second Skin / Second Life: Nodule. Alternate images and presculpted raw material.
Plastics / plasticity.
Plasticity: the quality or state of being plastic. The quality of being soft enough to be changed into a new shape. The quality of being able to be made into different shapes.
My second-skin forms are plastic. Often many of their component parts are made of plastics. But they are also plastic in the ways in which I work them. They have a malleability about them. As I bring objects together and wrap them, the sensation has a similar 'feel' as making objects out of clay. Whilst the materials are loose to move and flow in the trash bags I can both arrange their order, but I can also change their forms through the pressure of my hands. Only when the Second Skin of the stretch wraps finally coheres them together do the sculptures finally solidify.
Plasticity: the quality or state of being plastic. The quality of being soft enough to be changed into a new shape. The quality of being able to be made into different shapes.
My second-skin forms are plastic. Often many of their component parts are made of plastics. But they are also plastic in the ways in which I work them. They have a malleability about them. As I bring objects together and wrap them, the sensation has a similar 'feel' as making objects out of clay. Whilst the materials are loose to move and flow in the trash bags I can both arrange their order, but I can also change their forms through the pressure of my hands. Only when the Second Skin of the stretch wraps finally coheres them together do the sculptures finally solidify.
Second Skin / Second Life: Relic. Alternative images and pre-sculpted raw materials
Choice / Control.
This negotiation between malleability and resistance extends to the presence of more rigid components within the collected matter. Certain elements resist compression; they cannot be bent or crushed into submission. Yet their recalcitrance does not undermine compositional intent. Instead, it necessitates strategic placement. I determine where and how such forms manifest within the sculptural body, assigning them specific structural or visual roles. Thus, despite the apparent contingency of the materials, authorial control remains central. Objects are neither accidental nor arbitrary; they are selected, positioned, and integrated according to a considered formal logic.
This negotiation between malleability and resistance extends to the presence of more rigid components within the collected matter. Certain elements resist compression; they cannot be bent or crushed into submission. Yet their recalcitrance does not undermine compositional intent. Instead, it necessitates strategic placement. I determine where and how such forms manifest within the sculptural body, assigning them specific structural or visual roles. Thus, despite the apparent contingency of the materials, authorial control remains central. Objects are neither accidental nor arbitrary; they are selected, positioned, and integrated according to a considered formal logic.
Second Skin / Second Life: Biped. Alternative images and pre-sculpted raw materials
Conclusion / Culmination.
In the final analysis, Second Skin / Second Life repositions waste as resource and containment as generative act. By granting discarded packaging a renewed existence as sculpture, the work interrogates cycles of consumption and disposal while demonstrating the latent potential within overlooked materials. The layering of skins, protective, accumulative, and binding, serves as both process and metaphor, suggesting that value is neither inherent nor fixed but produced through attention and transformation. Ultimately, the project advocates a reconsideration of what is deemed expendable, proposing that the discarded remnants of contemporary life may yet possess the capacity for renewal, reconfiguration, and meaning.
In the final analysis, Second Skin / Second Life repositions waste as resource and containment as generative act. By granting discarded packaging a renewed existence as sculpture, the work interrogates cycles of consumption and disposal while demonstrating the latent potential within overlooked materials. The layering of skins, protective, accumulative, and binding, serves as both process and metaphor, suggesting that value is neither inherent nor fixed but produced through attention and transformation. Ultimately, the project advocates a reconsideration of what is deemed expendable, proposing that the discarded remnants of contemporary life may yet possess the capacity for renewal, reconfiguration, and meaning.