Lego Color Contructions
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I began working with LEGO bricks as a medium in my art practice in 2021 after embracing my then 4 year old’s deep interest in building LEGO sets with me by his side.
I have trouble with instructions because my neurodivergent brain often flips the diagrams and I can’t spatially orient myself, leading to lots of mistakes, or being incapable of helping my son correct mistakes. At the time, though, he needed parallel play with me and one day handed me four pieces put together and said, “I thought you’d like these colors next to each other.” I did. In that moment, I realized that I did not have to build representational objects by a set of rules I couldn’t understand, but could instead use LEGO bricks as pieces of modular color for abstract constructions, helping me regulate and process the intense sensory overload I experience daily as an Autistic person with ADHD. Not only could use LEGO bricks similarly to bits of colored paper or paint, it is a dry medium, which is far preferable for me because of my sensory issues. I do frequently paint the bricks using spray paint, but not always.
My work started small with constructions mounted on colored paper, framed and shown at Kafka’s Coffee, a popular Vancouver coffee shop with a rotating art program and curator, and will soon be shown on a global stage, in part thanks to my son’s intense interest and skill. At 7 he just completed his first EXPERT level set build. At 43 I have never completed a set build.