Lee Boroson’s work presents a nuanced take on the idea of nature. For the artist, “landscape” is positioned between man-made cultural constructs and wilderness. To achieve this, Boroson creates large-scale immersive installations, which emulate “natural” experiences for his viewers, based on the most ineffable elemental forces in nature — from air, fog, and smoke, to fire and the cosmos. Boroson’s installations are both embodied and ephemeral; they transform material and experience, all within the space of the gallery, calling for viewers to contemplate the very nature of nature.

Question

Much of your work is inspired by and suggests the evanescent – clouds, fog, water, flow – but is built using industrial techniques, frequently from the earliest forms of industry such as machine sewing, glass blowing, carpentry. Can you tell me about this unusual integration of the ephemeral and the manufactured?

Answer

I love your question. I think it easily points to the root of my intentions in recent projects. The way we use tools separates us from nature and enables us to impose some control on our environment. Our manipulations of nature, for example, pruning trees, clearing land, diverting and damming rivers each involve a basic technology and engineering. In my attempts to construct a sort of reinvention of the natural world, I followed a logical course to use simple and accessible techniques. I think that simplicity is of the utmost importance.

Uplift, 2013-2014, Nylon, blowers, wood, cord, Dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist, Photo: David Dashiell

In pictorial images of landscape, we are inevitably faced with the conundrum of how a singular moment can represent a living scene filled with flux and forces, hidden and rising to the surface to reflect the physical image of nature. My intention in using very physical materials and direct manipulation is both to set up an absurd situation where a sublime and transcendent moment is presented with so much artifice that it is theatrical and to correlate this artificial reality with manipulations that shape the “natural” world.

I don’t want my work to be bogged down by dazzling effects. I want any “magic” or tricks to be discernible to reinforce the realness of the work. I guess when you see a redwood or Niagara Falls for the first time, there is a certain “wow” factor and one may even feel as though he has entered an alternate reality, but these wonders can ultimately be reduced to wood and water, and I want my work to produce similar polarities.

Lee Boroson, Moisture Content, 2014, Fabric, acrylic, mylar, Lexan, aluminum, webbing, cord, Dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist, Photo: David Dashiell

As a maker of art I feel very connected to the analog, the physical manipulation of materials. I began my career as a metalsmith and studied all types of techniques that have remained mostly unchanged for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. As an artist in New York City, I have always lived in factory building and viewed the world from this unique point of view housed in the history of industry in relation city life. I see so many technologies that have been left behind in the name of advancement. Sometimes this is an improvement, other times it denotes the loss of a connection to a material or a way of working that ultimately we will need to reinvent.

Lee Boroson, Deep Current, 2014, Plastic balls, blowers, wood, pvc pipe, fence, hardware, fabric, Dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist, Photo: David Dashiell