Description
My work deals with dualities of the human condition such as the physical world and the metaphysical world, order and chaos, the familiar and the foreign, specificity and ambiguity, certainty and uncertainty, reality and fantasy, etc. These opposing forces often seem contradictory yet are coexistent. I am interested in investigating these dualities and blurring the boundaries between them in order to show their interconnectedness. The representation of the figure refers to the fact that our observations of the natural world and our perceptions are a result of our human consciousness. The vast majority of our endeavors are a means to understand something about our human existence. We strive to mesh abstract ideas with tangible observations and practices. This is driven by and understood in terms of our humanity. It is nearly impossible to step outside of our humanness. The figures in this body of work act as a way to at least step back and attempt to view ourselves from a distance. Familiar objects such as doors, windows, chairs and bottles also root the work in reality and act as a point of entry through which one can contemplate more metaphysical issues of human existence. Such objects are chosen for their universality and heavily weighted symbolic meanings. In an art context, these objects become metaphors that transcend their physicality. For example, a door is not simply a door, but can represent the transition into a different ways of perceiving reality. The video section of the installation is a way to further take these everyday objects and situations out of their ordinary context. By overlapping actual footage of people interacting with these objects and juxtaposing unlikely and impossible situations, the video describes more the landscape of the mind instead of reality as we know it and would expect it to exist. This shows the multiplicity of possibilities that could exist and suggests that reality is not as fixed as we often assume it to be. Another important element in my work is the mythology of the artist. This is portrayed by the installation of the artist's studio. In this gallery setting we see not only the artwork, but also a recreated environment in which the artist works. This installation becomes a kind of self-portrait that describes more about the inner workings of the mind of the self than could any portrayal of the physical appearance of the artist. The collection and systems of organization of the materials show the process of thought manifested through material objects. This portrayal of the mythology of the artist is representative of the archetypal struggle in the pursuit of truths. However, the obsessive and irrational portrayal in this installation, bordering on insanity, shows the fragility of the human mind and its incapability to understand the ultimate truth in its entirety. The more we dissect and analyze our reality the more exponentially intricate it becomes and at times can seem overwhelming and futile. This does not deter me from investigating various nuances of human existence.
