Things happen, ha, how vague is that? Things can range from events, interactions, fights, or internally generated things (vague right, I know). I have come to realize that I am not capable of allowing things to happen and move on. I dwell for ages on the simplest things. Replaying and reorganizing them until they in no way represent the original topic. I like to think of my work as visual representations of this process. The idea of capturing my attitude towards something to hold it in place. A place that can be revisited and reorganized at any time in a space beyond my head. Bookmarks, milestones, what ever cliche may be inserted here. I constantly OVERANALYZE everything, and construct my own version of reality, one that I feel should be presented. I consider my images commentary (or critically reviews) on/of topics that most everyone can relate to. Exaggeration of social pitfalls that become ridiculous.
There is an element of duality in my work, representations of multiple persons or perspectives. In each of my works I try to establish a two way relationship. Forced engagement results, either within the work itself of between the work and viewer. Your are either witness or participant, either way your involved or “guilty”. You can either understand and relate, disagree , or walk away thankful that you’re not “so fucked up”.
I also toy with the idea of time and relation. Memory can make you into a monster (especially if you tend to dwell on things). Your ability to accurately recall something diminished each time you draw it up. The truth becomes buried under layers of sediment, and decay. Your ability to accurately relate to the event is worthless, you’ve destroyed it. All you can do is try to “triangulate” the event in time and space. Though this type of practice is only successful in scientific endeavors.
So you could call the part that came before this section my “goals” in production. How I try to formalize those “goals” is another story. Producing a singular image to translate information started to feel overwhelming and cheap. I began to think (with some outside influence) “I have all these prints, and what good are they?”. Seeing the work of artist such as Tara Donovan pushed me to analyze the nature of the multiple. If you are unfamiliar with her work she creates sculptural installations out of readily available and often times disposable consumer goods. I thought “geeze, she is using all this shit to activate space”. Also the work of Jen Stark, which I am almost embarrassed to mention because of the direct influence she has had on my work. Stark works is almost non-visual, she works in a way that seemed amazing and foreign to me. Her works are usually paper sculptures. Many layers of brightly colored sheets of paper are fused together and folded outward to create patterning. Again I thought “wow, this is some crazy stuff”. These influences are key to my current mode of working. Both of these artists seemed to be more adept and communicating with the viewer than I.
So if you can imagine the place discovering these artist put me in things start to come together. I have all these things, they are paper, and manipulable. The jump seemed obvious. I removed the concern of editions and began to fuse every image together, and pull them apart. I feel as if working this way my message becomes more defined and available. The imposing nature of these works draws you in, and once your there you begin to dissect the meaning.
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