Liminality Series
Liminality usually refers to a rite of passage or transition from one state to another through mechanisms of ritual or ceremony. The root of Liminality, Liminal, is used to describe an intersection or state of being “in between.” This series is about that in between place where ideas, beliefs, time, and archetypes all interrelate in a moment of stasis right before the next transition of thought.
Each transit is comprised of similar key elements: an Ideogram, archetypes, euphemisms, and time. Time is encapsulated in each work through a particularity of color field choice. The core colors used are typically chosen from materials that date to a particular era and were often popular (now unpopular) product colors. By limiting color in this way, its particular combinations create a context of time along with vintage collage elements. The vintage collage elements come from a variety of sources, and are usually limited to a span of five years. The collage elements are assembled to create a sense of insinuation. Within in this suggestive assemblage, there are basically two critical elements that I’m interested in: archetype and euphemism. Euphemisms are explored through collage elements that can and often have a double meaning, much like a word in a sentence suggests multiple meanings. This sense of ambiguous meaning also applies to archetypes present in each work. Often these archetypes are hyperbole, and range in subject from what it is to be a manual laborer to observed interactions, and idealizations, yet other times they are very literal. This literal aspect relates directly to the Ideogram elements in my work. The ideogram is a symbolic summation of all these things, an abstract signifier made through mark. This final element is subject to the previously described color considerations.
With all of these considerations in mind, I hope to leave the viewer momentarily stranded in a fragmentary bizarre world that sits on the threshold of transition. That transition being the moment of comprehension, some form of understanding, or simple fascination of the absurdity of it all. Fundamentally, it’s the same moment we’re offered everyday by the world around us.
A Place You Might Have Known
This series is an exploration of the temporal nature of memory, time, and moment. All photos in this series are original found photos dating somewhere between 1950-1970 or around that time. They are a collection of moments connected through shared experiences of place, event, and relations, all of which are completely unknown to me. Despite various notes, dates, and locations handwritten on the reverse of many photos, understanding the connections between the individuals, places, events, and why the photo was taken in the first place is an impossibility. It is this impossibility that fascinates me because it creates an artificially real forgotten quality. Within that forgotten aspect of the work I have assigned a new meaning expressed in abstraction based upon the photo beneath in an attempt to re-synthesize a sense of meaning. Some works stand alone, isolated and internally stuck in a state of introspection while others are grouped into sets that share a common thread of connection in some way, shape, or form. Although contrived, these groupings begin to allude to a peripheral sense of story. What that story is exactly, is ambiguous at best, and an insinuation at most. This uncertainty tied to memory and memento is what this series is truly about and it is a recognition of the moment that attempts to access a memory that may or may no longer exist. Memories and experiences are the most fundamental things that make each of us who we are each and every day, at least as long as we can retrieve them. Our memories both individually and collectively are an inherently fragile treasure. As and affirmation of this idea, a portion of each sale will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Association. Information about the Alzheimer’s Association can be found at www.alz.org.
Palimpsests
A Palimpsest is an artifact, often fragmented and small in format, characterized by having been used and reused multiple times. Historically, Palmpsests are often the by-product of scarcity of support materials such as papyrus or paper resulting in the erasure and repurposing of existing documents. The repeated reuse of such materials eventually causes a build up of marks, abrasions, and other surface scarring giving the artifact a unique surface density in which multiple moments unfold and likewise retreat simultaneously. Artifacts like the Palmsests of Agrippina Minor are the inspiration for this series.
The works in this series are all on paper or Bristol supports, small in format, and heavily worked and reworked. The pieces, although divergent in content, are connected in that they are an exploration of fleeting thoughts and the attempt to record and rerecord them as they occur. This is achieved through a subconscious impulsive selection of appropriated images from a variety of sources that are then transferred, erased, modified and layered. This multitude of layering often creates a fragmented sense of story or place that is then summarized by a predominate mark. This mark is perhaps the only thing definitive and clear, the rest remaining in perpetual flux. It is this particular dynamic that I find the most stimulating in this series.