Locked within the depths of steel are unexpected colors and patterns, immutable imprints of the manufacture and forming of red hot steel, waiting to be teased out. But, while the deep-structured appearances are strictly an inside job, the surfaces of steel bear the scars and tokens of external affairs and encounters—mill scale, striated cuts, oxidized, weather-discolored scuffs, scrapes and impacts of storage and movement of steel elements from steelyard to location.
Ironically, for steel seems so hard-hearted and unforgiving, the images are surprisingly lyrical and highly emotive. They evoke both natural and constructed scenes, landscapes and seascapes, prehistoric civilizations, the violence of creation or explosive destruction, the serenity of a field of poppies…as determined in the eye of the beholder.