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iconography. Covered in recycled bike parts and student-designed ‘stained glass’ windows, the piece became a landmark and continues pictures of loved ones. “Bike Church was an aggregate, the public made it alive,” describes Blessing. It is a place for sorrow and joy; cyclists, and at least one couple has been married inside the piece.
In the last few years, Joe and Blessing’s work has exploded onto the public art scene. As artistic collaborators, they developed a common language through the generative logic that underlies both mechanical and natural structures. At heart, Joe is a technologist and Blessing is a sculptor, but they have discovered shared interests in living systems and machines. They believe that the tension between their divergent perspectives results in more complex work. “Blessing is a Platonist and I’m an Aristotelian,” says Joe with a smile, years and won’t be settled by us. When we disagree we resist the urge to seek an easy compromise. Instead, we each articulate our respective vision and question each other. We’ve found ways to synthesize different
impulses to create a response that goes beyond each of our initial ideas and is often a more powerful answer to the site than either of us would have reached on our own.”
The partnership has also proved fruitful for the clients. In particular when working in the public realm in which there is often division in the community or a diversity of views that need to be addressed through the art. “Several of our recent commissions have been located in contentious sites or we’ve been asked to it has been easier for us to internalize and empathize with the different cultural strains in the community. And because we follow our rule ourselves proposing ideas that both sides latch onto because they solve genuine problems,” Joe explains.
Conceptually, they operate through a constant cyclic process of moving from the theoretical to the material and back again. Their pieces are heavily rooted in site, but explore the boundaries of technological interactivity and experimental fabrication techniques.
Their process always begins with extensive research and analysis of the characteristics
© 2013 Joe O’Connell & Blessing Hancock Public Art | S. Blessing Hancock.
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