Danil Sonjaya Mixed Media sculpture

Artist Statement

What is home—an architectural space filled with loved ones? Or something less concrete, an ever-changing, evolving and metaphysical space that rests in a memory? Looking back at my childhood, I remember a nomadic lifestyle. With regular trips from country to country, my experience transcended usual ideas of travel between separated parents. My recent work explores the duality of my own identity, being an Indonesian-Puerto Rican living in America. There is a clear reference to this identity crisis within the suspension of architectural frames, each representing relics of past homes.

Focusing on the juxtaposition of a material world and bodiless memories, I seek to bring physicality to the past. My work bridges or connects memory to physical objects, infusing the three-dimensional with layered memories conveyed through formal construction, including but not limited to form, texture, and light. Working with a variety of materials including wood, cellophane, polypropylene, and Batik fabric has brought me to the roots of my childhood. As a multitude of architectural scrims dangle above, the memory of a once safe and loving home begins to morph and evolve into what I call “altered fixations.” The use of motion, light and shadow emulates the act of remembering and then remembering again. Once the original experience is conjured through memory, our perception of that event has already been altered. As the chandelier rotates, the form projects new architectural shadows onto surrounding surfaces. The viewer is invited to participate in the narrative and construct their own relationship with architecture, memory, and home.

“Once the original experience is conjured through memory, our perception of that event has already been altered.”