Riverfront Office Park | Cambridge, MA

  • Kevin Ford
  • Aakash Nihalani

Artist’s Statement: Aakash Nihalani



I’m not trying to push a certain highbrow logic or philosophy or purposefully communicate through the esoteric medium of art. I work instinctively, trying to follow my gut about the sensation of color and space, and having fun doing it.

People need to understand that how it is isn’t how it has to be. My work is created in reaction to what we readily encounter in our lives, sidewalks and doorways, buildings and bricks. I’m just connecting the dots differently to make my own picture. Others need to see that they can create too, connecting their own dots, in their own places.

Artist’s Statement: Kevin Ford

I take my materials from the hobby shops and sporting goods stores of my native suburban Connecticut, and my methods from the crafting housewives and the harmlessly delinquent pre-adolescents I grew up with. BB guns, hockey pucks, tennis balls, and crafting materials are stripped of their intended function as outlets for neutered violence, and given new purpose. I glue gun, shoot, and burn material to create highly formal objects nostalgic for a suburban America that may or may not have existed.

My figurative sculptures are part of a series of comic self-portraits. They employ personal iconography to create psychologically charged objects. All of the sculptures in this series are depicted with their heads obscured, literally buried in leisure activities and mundane tasks. Acting as Kouroi of the suburbs, these figures, with their carefully curated wardrobes and impossible poses, simultaneously represent the suburban ideal and the extreme of affluent suburban absurdity. The pieces are suburban totems, signaling unmistakable messages of class and upbringing through their familiar logos and fashion references.