Jason Borders’ Latest Series of Intricately Carved Animal Bones

In using animal remains to create something new, Jason Borders’ intricate work reminds us of the cyclical nature of life. First featured here on our blog, Borders has always been inspired by nature and always collected bones, but it wasn’t until recently that he began to use them as an art medium. He once said that he likes to think of these sculptural pieces as characters, ornately carved bones, antlers and skulls which are designed on the spur of the moment in his Portland, Oregon based studio.

“My work is a form of self-hypnosis. Its a way of turning off cognitive thought and simply reacting. Its very meditative. It is escapism, though in a certain sense, its a form of hyper-existence- of living purely in the moment. In this way the work becomes a method of overcoming fears, he writes. “In this light, the work I do delves into a place where the lines between life, death, fantasy and reality are blurred.”

For his new body of work, currently on view at Antler Gallery in his local Portland, Borders sought to explore larger scale and types of materials; the series includes his first fully-articulated skeleton, his largest skull to date, as well as his more signature bone assemblages.

“If you do something a thousand times it will inevitably change and improve. There’s a certain regeneration to it. Consistency, rhythm, repetition have been very strong themes in my life. I work the way I do because its a format wherein just a few elements can be used to generate an infinite number of results. There are only a few things I could do a million times and not get bored and I put a high premium on them.”