The Immoral Forest

The Immoral Forest is a collection of sculptures that utilizes cast off pieces of wood and metal to question relationships between humans and nature. Society’s squandered wood pieces and parts are laminated, joined, shaped and welded together to make structures resembling nature. When the sculptures are assembled together they form an artificial wooded area, The Immoral Forest. Tree trunks, branches, and shop scraps are held together by traditional wood working techniques, contemporary furniture construction methods, and welded metal. Wood, a recognizable material created by a natural process, is used to form unfamiliar structures creating an illusion of the reemergence of life.

The decadence of a tree’s life (the colors, structures, grain and growth patterns) is reinterpreted, distorted, converged and reconnected with metal scaffolds, lamination and joinery to visually reverse and abstract death into life and solids into voids. Metal and wood do battle with each other to create harmony without calm and balance with out symmetry. The metal constructions support and pierce the wood, offering an uneasy but essential coexistence.

The focus of a sculpture can be a single piece of wood, absorbing the viewer with the beauty found in the life of a tree. Often, the wood disappears and space becomes the subject making the void the object. Empty spaces are perceived at the same time that the wood and metal are seen. The empty space reminds us of our relationship with the natural world and how it is becoming more uncomfortable to appreciate the beauty of wood and other natural materials while at the same time understanding what is happening to our wooded areas. The forms and concepts of the art work are influenced by the writings of Jared Diamond in Collapse and Michael Pollan in his books The Botany of Desire and The Omnivores Dilemma.

I work to understand the nature of found wood and to reassemble it into a new perception. Though the tree pieces included in The Immoral Forest are no longer able to continue their process of growth through photosynthesis, the sculpture gives wood a new opportunity to achieve form and structure. They achieve a new presence, asking us to question our coexistence with the natural world.

Steven Florman
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Drawing and Reflection

The compositions of the drawings are to be viewed from the detail level of the lead work; then as a grouping of small objects; then as large works. I use the tip of many pencils to fill small squares with parallel lines, and then increase scale of the delineation to achieve increasingly larger unifying orders of datums to create a rhythm through out the composition. Drawing in this manner, with very sharp pencils, over a long period of time, enables me to see the design as it evolves. The sensation for me is similar to closing my eyes to hear more sounds. I want the viewer to look closely and reflect on the process and technique that created the art, as well as the subject.

The theme of the drawings is Western idealism and the realities of children as expressed by Ina J. Hughes in “A Prayer for Children”. Optimism and apprehension are contrasted in the pictures. The drawing and painting of overlapping repetitive images create a tension between positive and negative space which intensifies as the images are understood. Understanding the compositions requires the observer to see the work from three vantage points: The first is from the extremely small personal scale of a line which communicates calm, time and reflection. The second is from the level the contrasting overlapping images. The third is from a larger public scale which focused on rhythm and composition.

Steven Florman
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I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1959. I grew up in Garden Grove and Tustin after my parents moved to California in 1961. I Graduated from California Polytechnic University San Louis Obispo in 1983 with a Bachelor of Architecture. After I graduated from college on the way to settling in San Diego California, I lived and worked in Florence, Rome, Jerusalem and San Francisco. I visited friends in 1987 in San Diego while on a vacation and I decided to stay on vacation. Finding work, meeting my wife Dijana and having two children Nadia and Audrey have kept me (happily on vacation) in San Diego ever since.

I started making art for my senior project in college, over 30 years ago. I have maintained, as an integral part of my architecture practice, a hands on approach to my work ever since graduating. I build installations for my clients in the spaces I design. Installations have included such items as displays, furniture, cabinet pulls, doors, door knobs and site specific sculpture. I have also designed and built exhibits for the Children’s Museum, Museo De Los Ninos of San Diego. I have taught three dimensional design, residential design and furniture design at the Design Institute of San Diego.

I am currently living on a 6000 square foot urban piece of land, with my wife, daughters and a large dog. The lot contains my home, my workshop, a guest house and my orchard, where I have enough fruit trees and vines to provide my family (and some friends, some times) with fruit year round. I am currently working on a project which teaches and assists others with producing and gathering their own food in an urban environment. Since 1989 I have been a principle of my own architecture firm, with and with out partners. The current name is Florman Architects Inc., thankfully I do not have partners now. As the years go by (quickly ever since I have had children) I spend more and more time in the art studio and less in the architecture office. I currently spend about an equal amount of time split between my architecture practice, the art studio and driving my kids around (and walking the dog) and spending time with my wife. I am very thankful to the galleries who show my work, they make it possible for me to spend more time in my studio which keeps me closer to home.

Steven Florman