Submitted by angelawilletts on
Artist Statement:
Things I can't explain or define are a constant source of fascination. I enjoy processes that have me stumbling around in unknowingness. I don't much value resolution, either aesthetically or conceptually; it's misleading. And boring.
The processes involved in making my work embrace this sense of unsolvable or indefinable mysteries. I want my work to feel mildly disorienting, abstruse, unresolved. I start with shapes made chaotically -- spilling, rolling, smearing, dripping, and bleeding ink into water then across the surface of the polypropylene. Then begins my struggle to become familiar with the shapes without betraying the initial elusive gesture. I create structures in and around them that mimic my brain's attempt to measure, classify, and assimilate. But ultimately, there is an inherent gap between what can be perceived and what can be understood. I work two-dimensionally but often suggest three-dimensional form, further denying the viewer access to the desired object/knowledge.
Most recently I have investigated two related subjects -- the mechanics of the mind and the mechanics of the body. My current work documents a mind attempting to reflect on its own habits, systems, and predilections, examined like specimens under a microscope. The invented architectures describe an internal, often imperfect logic, self-referential loops, and the construction/dismantling of beliefs and assumptions. In the body pieces, I address the issue of objective versus subjective knowledge of self, through anatomy and sensation.
Art-making, for me, is a moment of consciousness - an opportunity to get lost in the unknown, then engineer my way back out with some sense of purpose and order. I hope to bring the viewer not a thesis or grand perspective to be grasped intellectually, but rather an invitation to stagger around in the unknown with me, contemplating moments of consciousness when we find them.
The processes involved in making my work embrace this sense of unsolvable or indefinable mysteries. I want my work to feel mildly disorienting, abstruse, unresolved. I start with shapes made chaotically -- spilling, rolling, smearing, dripping, and bleeding ink into water then across the surface of the polypropylene. Then begins my struggle to become familiar with the shapes without betraying the initial elusive gesture. I create structures in and around them that mimic my brain's attempt to measure, classify, and assimilate. But ultimately, there is an inherent gap between what can be perceived and what can be understood. I work two-dimensionally but often suggest three-dimensional form, further denying the viewer access to the desired object/knowledge.
Most recently I have investigated two related subjects -- the mechanics of the mind and the mechanics of the body. My current work documents a mind attempting to reflect on its own habits, systems, and predilections, examined like specimens under a microscope. The invented architectures describe an internal, often imperfect logic, self-referential loops, and the construction/dismantling of beliefs and assumptions. In the body pieces, I address the issue of objective versus subjective knowledge of self, through anatomy and sensation.
Art-making, for me, is a moment of consciousness - an opportunity to get lost in the unknown, then engineer my way back out with some sense of purpose and order. I hope to bring the viewer not a thesis or grand perspective to be grasped intellectually, but rather an invitation to stagger around in the unknown with me, contemplating moments of consciousness when we find them.
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Artist Display Name:
A Willetts