BRODEN CEDAR WALSH
Profile
broden.walsh@tufts.edu
@broden.cedar
broden.walsh@tufts.edu
@broden.cedar
an unending, un-beginning love that sends telepathy, wavelength, sound file, snail mail, hearth throbbing, outwards
Always
As a child, I believed that the trees in the forest walked around at night. My work is born from a lasting wonderment and continued conviction that there is something more than the plainly visible. Which is applied to the work by acknowledging the agency of materials and by referencing varied spiritual practices.
Through sculpture that utilizes craft mediums, the work is both imbued with the charge of my bodily actions and is approachable to the human body. The body becomes one of the agential mediums alongside wood, metal or stone. These minimally processed materials position the work close to the Earth. These materials are activated through time-based processes; a burning candle, dripping water, the rusting of metal. Engagement with the work is subverted by encouraging viewer interaction, balancing the sculpture between art object and domestic object. Slowness or awareness is often required from the viewer, positioning the work against the scramble of modern life.
My process integrates the sourcing of found materials with research on cultural and spiritual ceremony. Reused objects bring their past lives to the work while understanding sociological history informs how my experience can be made universal. Any material, object, action or belief that appears throughout time and place can tell us something about humanity.
I am particularly interested in materials with interpretations rooted in both the environment and ritual, such as ash. Ash is not neutral, some might even call it provocative. It is present post-destruction. It is material un-done. Large amounts of ash can be associated with explosions or forest fires or war. All of which are unsettlingly familiar today. However, the nutrient-dense quality of ash makes it life giving.
Ash is at once post-destruction and pre-becoming.
Aren’t we all?
Through the cultivation of slowness and utilization of minimally processed materials, my work challenges the mainstream; maintaining a quiet strength.
Education
School for Museum of Fine Arts
2021-2026
The Putney School
2017-2021
2021-2026
The Putney School
2017-2021
Shows
Source of Origin, Student Gallery Show
Bromfield Gallery, 150 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA
November - December 2024
Casa Bagnolo Artist Residency
Sardinia, Italy
October - December 2022
Bromfield Gallery, 150 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA
November - December 2024
Casa Bagnolo Artist Residency
Sardinia, Italy
October - December 2022
PORTFOLIO