June 8, 2012
Athens, Greece
I am a product of many things, but not by choice. Therefore my inclination is to make everything into one.
This exhibition is not about individual works. It is an experience of a syntactical structure that operates like the unconscious. The syntax speaks through the work; it?s the existing language of the symbolic order, or in Lacanian terms the big Other. The big Other is not something one learns. ?It?s the language that speaks through us rather than the language we speak?.
My big question when making art, is how do the pieces fit inside the big other? How does it avoid the irrelevancy of a dead product in a market place that spins despite itself? How can a work of art become alive and occupy the space of the real?
Meaning is mutable; it changes according to physical or social perspective, with speed of approach. There is no fixity; things aren?t arranged for static contemplation. However everything is connected, like a fabric. And there are anchoring points, like a button on an upholstered chair , points de caption? where one can rest in a fixed meaning for at least a little while. However the real meaning lies within the movement between the works of art. Each piece signifies something, but they are connected like a chain. One meaning begets another, and often results in a third meaning between the two.
In the painting The Greek Protester/ Eau de Vie, there is an image of a young man throwing a Molotov cocktail. He emerges from the depths of a Renaissance perspective. There is also another image of a flat graphic label. I enact two-dimensional design and three-dimensional perspective within the same painting. Abstract expressionist marks are segued between them to repair the breakage, forcing them to have a dialogue. I give meaning to each perspective by undermining the other. I expose and create a syntactical conflict. But the nature of conflict entails action and movement, and one must experience the painting not only through the physical action of the eye, but through the metaphysical act of the viewer?s own shifting perspective, as he or she negotiates the points of fixed resignation, reconciliation, and recapitulation of the big other within their own experience.
It challenges what the viewer thinks he already knows, and this interests me. It?s fair enough, because I am only challenged if I can?t imagine how it will look in the end. I like to use images from popular culture, because they are shared signifiers. I choose them carefully. They must already vibrate as a symbol - performing a role that has the power to remind us of the very essence of our humanity, for better or worse. These individual elements don?t have to be based in language, (they can be pre-verbal, like a scream, or a movement of the body, like a dance) but they become part of a language that produces meaning at a particular time for at least a little while.
If one can tap into the symbolic order (not easy because it constantly shifts) one can apply it to any media. The language is the same but the materials must be learned. To learn how to manipulate materials is easy. What is difficult is making the material fit inside the collective language of the symbolic order. Each work often refers to something else: a drawing refers to musical notation while words in a painting refer to a melody. There is a conflation of meanings at work within each piece. And a group of works shown together create even more meaning in between. The process never ends. This is life.