Quality Control (Gravity Check, Bronx Museum)
2024
Ceramic (clay sourced from the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
124" x 72" x 12"

Installation view of Bronx Calling: The Sixth AIM Biennial at The Bronx Museum, 2024. Image courtesy of The Bronx Museum. Photo by Argenis Apolinario.

Quality Control (Gravity Check, Bronx Museum), detail
2024
Ceramic (clay sourced from the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
124" x 72" x 12"

Installation view of Bronx Calling: The Sixth AIM Biennial at The Bronx Museum, 2024. Image courtesy of The Bronx Museum. Photo by Argenis Apolinario.

Quality Control (Gravity Check, Bronx Museum), detail
2024
Ceramic (clay sourced from the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
124" x 72" x 12"

Installation view of Bronx Calling: The Sixth AIM Biennial at The Bronx Museum, 2024. Image courtesy of The Bronx Museum. Photo by Argenis Apolinario.

Quality Control (Gravity Check, Longwood)
2024
Ceramic (clay sourced from the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
192" x 24" x 16"
Quality Control (Gravity Check, Longwood), detail
2024
Ceramic (clay sourced from the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
192" x 24" x 16"
Quality Control (Gravity Check, Longwood), detail
2024
Ceramic (clay sourced from the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
192" x 24" x 16"
Quality Control (Gravity Check, Longwood), detail
2024
Ceramic (clay sourced from the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
192" x 24" x 16"
Quality Control (Gravity Check, FIT)
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
72" x 16" x 240"
Quality Control (Gravity Check, FIT), detail
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
72" x 16" x 240"
Quality Control (Gravity Check, Wave Hill)
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
40" x 18" x 20"
Quality Control (Gravity Check, Wave Hill), detail
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
40" x 18" x 20"
Quality Control (Wave Hill)
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from across the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
24' x 5' x 13'
Quality Control (Wave Hill), detail
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from across the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
24' x 5' x 13'
Quality Control (Wave Hill), detail
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from across the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
24' x 5' x 13'
Quality Control (Wave Hill), detail
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from across the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
24' x 5' x 13'
Quality Control (Wave Hill), detail
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from across the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
24' x 5' x 13'
Quality Control (Wave Hill), detail
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from across the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
24' x 5' x 13'
Quality Control (Wave Hill)
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from across the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
24' x 5' x 13'
Quality Control (Monticello)
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from across the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
8" x 3" x 2"
Quality Control (Monticello Woods)
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from across the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
7’ x 5' x 2'
Quality Control (Monticello Woods), detail
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from across the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
7’ x 5' x 2'
Quality Control (Monticello)
2023
Ceramic (clay sourced from across the Eastern U.S.) and mason line
7’ x 5' x 2'
Quality Control (NADA House)
2022
Ceramic (clay sourced from Fishers Island, Long Island, Hudson River) and mason line
20' x 12' x 10'

Photo by Cary Whittier.

Quality Control (NADA House), detail
2022
Ceramic (clay sourced from Fishers Island, Long Island, Hudson River) and mason line
20' x 12' x 10'

Photo by Cary Whittier.

Quality Control (NADA House), detail
2022
Ceramic (clay sourced from Fishers Island, Long Island, Hudson River) and mason line
20' x 12' x 10'

Photo by Cary Whittier.

Quality Control (NADA House), detail
2022
Ceramic (clay sourced from Fishers Island, Long Island, Hudson River) and mason line
20' x 12' x 10'
Quality Control (NADA House)
2022
Ceramic (clay sourced from Fishers Island, Long Island, Hudson River) and mason line
20' x 12' x 10'
Quality Control, studio install, v1
2021
Ceramic (clay sourced from Fishers Island) and mason line
10' x 4' x 9'
Quality Control, studio install, v1, detail
Quality Control, studio install, v1, detail
Quality Control, studio install, v1, detail
Digging clay at a Taylor Clay Products mine in North Carolina
January 2023
Digging clay in Charlottesville, Virginia
January 2023
Digging clay on Fishers Island, New York.
August 2021
Video by Nate Malinowski
Digging clay in Haverstraw, New York.
November 2021
Photo by Robin Ahrens
Digging clay in Haverstraw, New York.
November 2021
Photo by Robin Ahrens
Brick hunting in Kingston, New York.
November 2021
Photo by Arkadiy Ryabin
Brick hunting in Kingston, New York.
November 2021
Photo by Arkadiy Ryabin

Quality Control is an ongoing project that is composed of hollow ceramic bricks, slip cast from naturally occurring clay that I harvest from the sites of former brickworks. The clay is cast into molds that I make of bricks found at the various sites, where my labor as an artist echoes the once active factories that have since disappeared. The bricks are used to form improvised structures, held together with mason line, that react to the specific location in which they are installed. They are intended to be temporary, and never installed the same way twice.


Freed from their need to function in the usual sense, these bricks are broken open to reveal hollow interiors, becoming vessels in their own right. Something has slipped away, or perhaps was never there to begin with. Quality Control considers our shared cultural longing for that which has been lost—from buildings to people—in the context of a history fraught with contradiction. For instance, if you see an older brick building in New York City, there is a good chance that it is made from clay found along the Hudson River, also known as Muhheakantuck (“river that flows two ways”) by the Lenape people. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Hudson Valley was one of the largest brick producing regions in the world. Structures including the Empire State Building used Hudson River bricks for their construction, creating a feedback loop of the expansion of a city on stolen land with resources from that stolen land.


With this serving as a historical backdrop, brick is often used to express nostalgia for a bygone era, before the advent of glass and steel, a marker of authenticity to validate the empty commercial aims of corporate chains and real estate developers. Exposed brick is the calling card of chic cafés and luxury lofts. It is alluring for good reason: a constant presence that is comforting in its simple strength, you feel you can count on brick. It is a ubiquitous, ancient material; a basic unit, made of earth, shaped and then fired, repeated countless times to construct our built environment.


The structures I assemble are a response to these realizations, in search of a new equilibrium. The resulting weightlessness of these hollow bricks transcends usual associations of strength and stability, questioning the veracity of historical narratives that speak of an authentic past. They are no longer required to bear any weight, allowing light and air to pass through, discarding the hubris of monumental permanence. Mason line is normally used to create straight lines to follow when building walls, but here it has replaced mortar as the joining substance. It can be cut at any time, and the forms adjusted. The mason line creates a complimentary pattern to that of the bricks, forming a network of relationships, where each brick becomes a node in a larger system.