⧏⧏ KEY THEMES ⧐⧐
Reaching… an exploration of perception
All of my pieces were influenced by our talks on experimental art. In particular, the above piece was inspired by surrealism. I found it very freeing to relate to this piece as an exploration of the inner workings of my own mind without the need for it to make rational sense. It felt good to subvert rationality in this way. This subversion has been a key element that has threaded through all of my art this semester and the above collage is just one example.I loved this quote from the Surrealist Manifesto: ”Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation" - Andre Brenton, Surrealist Manifesto (1924)
Star Travel… an exploration of space
This piece was greatly influenced by the theme of art and space that we learned about in week eight. With the collage style that I have been practicing this semester, I considered how the relationship between space and object influences and changes both. I see this consideration applicable in layers: within the frame of a photograph, within the composition of the collage, and within the presentation of the collage (where it is presented in space). I focused mainly on the first two. One example is the image of my shadow and how it is framed within the photograph. The border from sidewalk to grass that cuts through the shadow affects the shadow. The metaphoric meaning of this cutting is, of course, up for interpretation. The same can be said about the arrangement of the photographs within the space of the collage. Had I arranged the various elements of the piece differently, a different story would be told.
Mothership… an exploration of sound
This piece was driven by the concept of deep listening. I was very inspired by Pauline Oliveros’s work and by the lecture on experimental sound. For this piece, I played with listening to different audios as I created to explore the space between hearing and listening. I found that different musical and spoken inputs molded the process of this piece and gave it an added dimension that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. Through this meditation on sound, my work became the visual fruits of the practice of deep listening.