SEED Checklist
Brian Oakes (they/them b. 1995) is a Brooklyn-based sculptor presenting SEED, their first solo exhibition with the gallery. Everything starts with organic processes, even industrialization and its decline. To seed is to put creation into motion and refers to any input used to initialize a generative process. The artist’s mechanized artworks explore a commodities journey from conception, production, and logistics, finally landing at display. Oakes is uplifting the chain of events necessary in production, including the use of automated markets, raw materials, by-products, their refinement, and distribution, investigating how worth is determined as objects progress along this chain. Not all seeds become flowers. The exhibition proposes that within hyper-mass individualization, those living under capitalism are the 'SEED' that is being sewn and the world is generated for us and around us.
Brian Oakes
ASRS 134" x 15" x 50"
Aluminum extrusion, acrylic, custom hardware, cameras, monitors, 3d printed parts in ABS and Resin, custom PCB’s, motors, wood, foam, paint, glue, thread, images printed on paper
Brian Oakes
Encryption Device 138" x 30" x 53"
Aluminum extrusion, acrylic, fans, lava lamps, 3d printed parts in PLA, custom hardware, custom cables, custom PCB’s, Lava lamps, motors, light bulbs, power supplies, belts
Brian Oakes
Display Case 1 (A Body)5" x 32" x 19"
A wall mounted display case containing: ten homemade rubies, four wisdom teeth (courtesy of the artist), two shards of vivianite (sourced from a seller in Brazil who claims these were “hand selected from a graveyard”), a sculpture depicting a skull made of 20 AWG copper wire encased in a piezoelectric crystal (also known as Rochelle Salt or potassium sodium tartrate, characterized by their pyroelectricity property in which these growths can generate a temporary voltage when heated, cooled, or experience mechanical pressure), eight chunks of fordite (also known as Detroit Agate or Motor City Agate (which are formed from the buildup of thousands of layers of automotive paint slag on tracks and skids in auto plants) carved and tumbled into minimalist shapes, three Campo del Cielo meteorite fragments, two Prophecy Pseudomorphs (made up of hematite, whose name is derived from the Greek word for “blood”), a chunk of shungite and the selenite wand that protected its passage to the artist, a plastic army man in the throngs of a violent act cast in piezoelectric crystals (see above note), a small totem made of wax from dozens of Babybel 8.5oz cheese snack collected during (to be cast in zinc plated copper legs of every component clipped onto the floor of the artists studio between 2020 and 2024)
Brian Oakes
Display Case 2 (A Garden)5" x 22" x 9.5"
A wall mounted display case containing: 18 homemade rubies and 18 copper sulfate crystal seeds
Brian Oakes
Display Case 3 (A Mind)5" x 22" x 9.5"
A wall mounted display case containing: 5 copper sulfate crystals grown by the artist over the course of one month, a specimen of electrically induced copper crystals (after one month of growth), two “Devil’s Heads” seed pods (also known as the fruit of Trapa natans, a plant that has the common name “water chestnut”), 4 freshwater pearls, two homemade rubies, one stone of baltic amber with 5 Insect trapped 40-60 million years ago, one dried branch of red coral
Brian Oakes
Display Case 4 (A Breath)5" x 7.75" x 10.5"
A wall mounted display case containing: three homemade rubies, two copper sulfate crystal seeds, one “Devil’s Heads” seed pod (also known as the fruit of Trapa natans, a plant that has the common name “water chestnut”), a CD4017 CMOS Decade Counter with 10 Decoded Outputs in the DIP16 format that was improperly connected and exploded, 3 piezoelectric crystal seeds (also known as Rochelle Salt or potassium sodium tartrate, characterized by their pyroelectricity property in which these growths can generate a temporary voltage when heated, cooled, or experience mechanical pressure), a chunk of shungite, and 5 freshwater pearls.
Brian Oakes
PALLET 1 (House on Hill)Oak pallet, custom printed circuit boards, foam, balsa wood, denim, sand.
Brian Oakes
PALLET 5 (Mechanic Shop)Oak pallet, custom printed circuit boards, foam, plastic, balsa wood
Brian Oakes
PALLET 6 (Jesus Saves)Oak pallet, custom printed circuit boards, foam, balsa wood, sand, wire
Brian Oakes
PALLET 8 (Seed Display)Oak pallet, laser cut acrylic, copper, shungite, fordite, freshwater pearl, copper sulfate crystal seed, piezoelectric crystal seed, selenite, petrified amber
Brian Oakes
PALLET 11 (Box Containing Bladeless Knife, No Handle)Oak pallet, laser cut acrylic, bladeless knife with no handle
Brian Oakes
PALLET 12 (Crystalline Figures)Oak pallet, army men cast in piezoelectric crystals, laser cut acrylic, black ribbon
