Count from Ten on Fish Fingers
ARTIST: Elijah Ober
HOME: Maine, USA
LOCATION: Elijah Ober
ARTIST STATEMENT:
“Fish don’t have fingers, so they can’t lift a shovel, but they actually can count. So, they’re really not a bad candidate for quantifying something slippery, but they keep their fins clean when it comes time to dig a canal. That’s a job for some humans.
Just plot a course, call in a backhoe, remove some trees, cut some rock. Count from ten, walk fast down hill, buy a boat, take a video, leave the floodgates open.“

Elijah Ober was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and grew up in Southern Maine. He comes from a family of artists – his dad, Stuart Ober and his aunt, Wendy Turner are painters. His uncle, Peter Turner, builds fine furniture. He studied Art and Anthropology at Bowdoin College, and spent his summers building stone staircases on hiking trails in the White Mountains. Elijah’s work combines found materials with his own fabrications to create objects with basic functional aspirations and fugitive presence. His work looks for animistic personality in mundane objects, naively pursues craft, and investigates the role of imagination in placemaking.

