Continental Drift

John McQueen
Continental Drift
Willow and waxed string
2004

With slim branches of willow, John McQueen describes images of the mind, as well as those of time and place. In the frieze running along the top of Continental Drift, we recognize things from the world, and from history, running together like ideas, or memories. Below, the branches form tightly packed shapes that intermittently suggest familiar objects, but then elude definition.  

For decades, John McQueen has been using the traditional materials and methods of basket-making to create both large and intimately scaled works of sculpture. Continental Drift was developed for a 2004 exhibition titled Drawing Out the Collection: John McQueen Responds to RAM, for the Racine Art Museum in Wisconsin. In an airport now, rather than a museum, these images take on associations with travel to distant lands, where a complexity and profusion of sights and sounds can be both wondrous and perplexing.