Previous Shows: 2014: The Thing of It Is (curated by Steve Gibson): Carlson Hatton
My work explores the limits of the visual language created to reify that which is troublesome to depict and thus dependent on illustration. The symbiotic relation or fusion of environment and figure, the passage of time, the glow of light signifying celestial intervention. Drawing inspiration from music history, national geographic, fashion magazines, electronics catalogues and art history; my work traverses the visual vestiges of an imposed collective consciousness in search of meaning, unity or at least overlap.
I'm interested in the slippery quality attached to the language of advertisement that seems to expire the moment it's produced. My landscapes and figures dwell within that rich aftermath; reproducing and reconfiguring to create alternate environments with re-contextualized echos of the vaguely familiar. Weaving together water color washes, acrylic, graphite and oil, I strive to create layerings that defy space while simultaneously creating pockets to fall into. I construct Images and narratives derived from a psychotic reality that has lost visual coherence.
My work explores the psychedelic mass of seemingly available and inexhaustible visuals and histories. I'm fascinated in our shared visual lexicon and it's state of continuous construction that becomes denser and more impenetrable through constant development, revisitation and re-appropriation.
I see excitement in such traces because it offers a near universal, though highly superficial, language of varied historical accuracy. I utilize the loaded quality of such imagery and want to leave traces of it within my work, ghosts that cannot be predicted nor controlled because the plethora of histories, references and connotations could never be covered. The crime scene that yields mismatched fragments or clues within the wreckage of a collapsed building.
