Joshua Challen Ice’s sculptural and installation practice investigates the tension between creation and collapse, strength and fragility, precision and improvisation. Using industrial and architectural materials, he builds forms that reveal hidden labor embedded in both physical structures and social systems. His work highlights the process of maintenance as an active and ongoing struggle, reflecting a broader metaphor for effort, exhaustion, and resilience.

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Ice often engages directly with construction practices and domestic infrastructure, creating interventions that emphasize the absurdity of the making and renovating processes itself. Referring to this tension as “the surreal everyday” - the uncanny collision of common materials and poetic gestures. His sculptures exist in a mindset of frantic troubleshooting, with methodical execution where problem-solving becomes both method and metaphor.