Through a puzzle-like process of multiplication, the exhibition explores state-change and in doing so, posits the notion of the self and invented objects on the precipice of total transformation. Rodman’s lexicon of form includes matrixes of hexagons, clouds of smoke, and event-based figurative sculptures that fuse the concrete and uncanny experiences of the body with metaphysical abstraction.

The Navigator’s Quarters Must Not Be Disturbed is the premise of a non-existent story spawn from a void. Around this abyss, Rodman has constructed an environment using the media of sculpture, painting, and installation, which transforms the gallery into a space that may be the dwelling of an absent prismatic character. This character, also known as the Navigator is a self-reflective, mythic figure who is simultaneously the beholder of events, the artist, and the story’s protagonist. In the Navigator’s absence, Rodman’s architectural constructions become a place that evokes the feeling and design of solitary spaces like ship cabins and space stations, while remaining rooted in abstraction and placeless-ness.

The Navigator’s Quarters, is a seven foot silver wall made of three stacked and stretched hexagons that divides the gallery into three respective sections. This physical construction creates the sensation of three spaces nested within one another. As this space swells, a matrix is created that might, in fact, swallow time and certainly makes its elusive nature palpable. Within these three sections, Rodman has installed groups of sculptures. Many of these objects resemble recognizable forms like a lamp, a table, or a column. However, because there is nothing concretely identifiable about any of these objects, they retain their mystery. The sculptures are transitory symbols that combine references to the passage of time, metaphysical transformation, the sublime void, and phenomenological experience.

Within the exhibition, the Navigator is made manifest in the form of a reflexive and doubled sculptural rendition of the artist. Rodman asked a group of twelve multipliers to sculpt him from observation. Each “multiplier” was asked to create two body parts. Through this process, the group created two separate and complete figures, each made up of twelve components. Rodman combined the parts to create The Navigator a sculpture in which the two figures hover above one another. Rodman describes the origin of this process as a combination of the idea of selfhood (which he perceives as a continuous performance) with the attempt to make a solid sculpture of vision:

The fragmented vision of the multipliers mirrors our own experience of our body – though we can apprehend our body in reflection as a whole, our personal, direct experience of our body feels completely different, it is fragmentary, somewhat awkward and definitely at odds with the way we perceive others to perceive us – as a unified form.

Another sculpture entitled Enter and Enter, evolved from similar thinking about what constitutes a coherent sense of selfhood from moment to moment and day to day. The multicolored, painted panels that compose this sculpture form a surface that continuously weaves between interior and exterior. Finished with a painterly application of color, which the artist calls “sequential action painting,” Enter and Enter combines time and vision:

The columns of color are painted so as to deliberately reveal “the hand” (the actual moment of contact between sculpture, brush, and myself) and they are painted in order so each section of the sculpture corresponds to an order in time, so that as the viewer circles the sculpture he or she is, in a sense, moving through time.