Chris Eckert

Originally trained as a mechanical engineer, I worked for a number of years in Silicon Valley designing and building factory automation. While I enjoyed many aspects of this career, I rapidly became frustrated with its necessary emphasis on production. Equipment design has one goal: make widgets as fast as you can. I wanted to explore the artistic potential of factory automation itself. For me, the machinery was more interesting. What the machinery created was inconsequential.

Art and engineering have much in common; both center on creation. But the motivation for creation separates these disciplines. Engineers focus on what they are making while artists concentrate on why they are making. For me why has always been some internal struggle, some idea or problem that makes me confused and slightly uncomfortable. I explore this in my art and the resulting sculpture remains as a record. Occasionally I find resolution, but often I emerged even more conflicted. The simplest question often demands a complex, nuanced answer and the resulting object remains open to interpretation and waits for someone to place it in their own context. It becomes a visual parable.