My work centers around themes of belief, credibility, and the experience of discovery. It explores the construction of fact and knowledge, and the significance of a misalignment between outward appearance and underlying characteristics. I seek to create situations that provoke curiosity and investigation. My pieces borrow, reference, and build upon elements of functional objects and musical instruments in combination with my own invention and aesthetic sense. These become objects of play, a significance contradicted by an appearance of fine craft and use of materials like metal, wood, or leather, which speak to the various ways they can be seen as tools, instruments, or apparatus. Seemingly familiar and purposeful, while also inscrutable and slightly absurd, they are open to the viewers’ speculation.

gabrielmo.com, @mo_naikeen