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Artist Statement.
TIME.
These are works conceived and painted in Berlin, Germany. They
are the break down of what I see, what I feel, what I remember.
Perception moving through time. Time is passing. The act of
perceiving.
These are my senses. This is memory. This is a chain of relationships.
This is what I see.
They are works on canvas. I use raw pigment, and mixtures of
oils, varnishes and turpentine. I mix them into different staining
and binding mediums. Varying the thickness of oil to pigment,
pigment to turpentine, allows me the ability to manipulate the
speeds of paint flow, its adhesive, staining, washing, or binding
nature. Its quality of transparency and opacity. Giving me the
smallest amount of control in what is by preference, an organic
and chance-full process. I do not "mark" the canvas. Instead
I pour and drip, rotating the canvas continually throughout
the process. This process is a build up of multiple layers,
usually ten or more. References of seeing.
These references are personal. My eyes' reactions. Spatial perspectives.
Compressions and impressions of time and movement. A visual
memory is constructed. Sensation is collected, slowed down,
broken into data, re selected and interpreted. Settled into
layers of visual textures and space. Landscapes of visual memory.
Visual memory compressed into one moment. A canvas. TIME.
For me, Seeing is a form of moving through space. The eye collects
everything. Sight is a merely a process of information gathering.
What is being seen? What do I call that? What is not needed?
What remains? Interpretation. Combinations, categorizations
and patterns. The endless supply of visual data.
Were I to "see" it all, I would not be able to move
nor function.
Open my eyes and I am receiving. Sight is placed into the needed/not
needed file. Stored for future reference. Yes, that is an orange.
Or deleted. I can now walk down the street. I see what I need.
I am able to function because of selection. Visual memory.
Seeing is memory. TIME.
I try to understand this, I try to break it down. This very
fast process of seeing/interpretation/re-membering. I try to
break it apart into very separate intentions. I try to slow
it down. And amplify its relationships. To break it apart and
look at its process. Sight to seeing, interpretation to memory.
Seeing is not then, just the eyesı action. But a process of
gathering and organizing. A process of placing importance. Re-membering.
Acts of gathering, marking and permanence. What is seen, what
is needed, what is actual sight, and what is visual memory.
I use repetition. I slow down my visual process. Record visual
importance. I cannot separate motion from seeing, seeing from
memory, perceiving from living. I try to amplify these unions.
To ask some questions about their separateness. I try to cast
doubt on the relationships we take for granted as one act. The
act of seeing. The use of our senses. The body full of information
gathering capabilities, walking within TIME.
2002-Berlin
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Movement Statement
This is a project about memory. This project is about connection.
This project is storytelling. Tell me your story. Let out a
memory. Create a connection. Record visually a process. This
is a painting.
Time is passing.
Somewhere inside us, time is a long visual record. Un-sequenced.
Un-timed. Even out of order. A collection of vivid moments.
Memory.
I cannot see into the picture house of your mind. You can't
play for me a home video of your memories. So, you tell me stories.
I create new pictures as I watch you. If I am listening, I may
get a glimpse of whom you are. If I hear you, I can see the
visions that compress you into being.
A layered history. A visual history.
As I consider you, I may see a mimic of the memory inside you.
Across your face.
The way you move your head. You raise your eyebrows. Move your
lips, look from side to side. If I watch carefully, I may see
between these motions. I might get a glimpse of your meaning.
I will see your expressions.
Will you tell me what you mean? Will you not tell me everything?
I see the hesitation, a decision to hold back this or that.
It falls across your eyes just now.
A missing frame.
When you laugh your neck relaxes. Your head falls back. Your
show me a thought through your open mouth. We are all animals
actually. Your body tells me as much as your words.
And this is what I look for.
This is a visual storytelling project. It involves people talking
to me about their memory. These conversations are recorded visually.
A camera records stills of this moving process. A conversation.
A movement through time across the landscape of your experiences.
Remembered moments. These stills are then transposed into paintings.
Paintings that are multi-layered. 15 movements of your face
as you talk to me. 15 expressions of your eyes, mouth, or chin.
A conversation full of impressions, transferred into line, shape,
color, and movement, the tools of a painting. The end result
becoming a visual expression of stored memory. A remembered
history viewed in one moment. All frames compressed one above
the other onto a canvas. Layered expressions, your facial movements,
taken from a linear line, a fluid, time-based conversation,
and compressed into a field of depth. An object. A painting.
Stilled memory.
I am interested in this. Memory. I am interested in our body
movements as we tell our memories. I am interested in slowing
down time, or speeding it up. So our conversation is now seen
all in one moment. Or perhaps the flip side, slowed down into
still upon still of expression. Painting allows me to do this.
I am not so concerned about what you tell me. Though it is important
to you. I concern myself with the story your expressions relate
to me. Your words allow you to find the story, telling it brings
your visual memories to the surface. On your face, in your movements.
It is written all over your face, we say.
I search then, for the memory stored in your body language.
The traces of experience that guides your stories. The history
that lies in your expressions. I am searching for the visual
record of your memory. To see pain or joy in the face of another.
Instinct.
I gather the world about me and place it onto a canvas. I am
reacting almost continually to memory. I can capture the images
of your face. The inserts of laughter, that very important name
you seem to forget. Your brow is furrowing. These expressions
as you recall. I want them. I will use them. I will construct
a history. A retelling of your story. His-story, retold through
my story. Reshaping words into pictures. Were I able to get
inside your head and play out the movie of images you are drawing
from, I would have no need to do this. But I cannot. Yet I am
sure about one thing. I will see you differently as you are
compressed onto a canvas. I will see you as a series of condensed
moments. I wonder what truth of expression will occur there?
Will these paintings say visually what you meant? Will they
say more? Oral history turned visual history. This is my theme.
I see importance in capturing the visual memory. I can read
of your history. I can hear your history as you tell me. I can
watch a documentation of this process. But these do not act
in me as memories do. Memory stores itself in me as images layered
out of order, out of meaning, out of regulated time. A painted
record of your movements as you tell me of your experiences,
comes closer to describing memory. This is what I see. This
is what I want to describe.
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