123BLOKMYSELF!
SOLO PROJECT EXHIBITION
GORDART GALLERY & PROJECT SPACE, JHB
29 OCTOBER – 30 NOVEMBER, 2009
OVERVIEW
The black and white of the photocopies, reproduced in the paintings, belies the vividness and complexity of ‘reality’ but accentuates the mediated nature of the way in which we experience this ‘reality’.
Based on visual associations between seemingly random images and events in my own life in the past, the imagery and content of this body of work consist of a very personal iconography. Images encountered by chance became visual manifestations of particular events and influences. But the randomness of these chance encounters then became a broader reference to the disconnected ways in which we experience the world - through associations that we instinctively make within the space of a second, and through images fleetingly imprinted on our memories and imagination.
The initial accidental distortion of found imagery, through errors in printing and copying, became part of a process of filtering fragments of ‘reality’. It became indicative of an ambiguity that is part of our understanding of the world – an understanding often largely constructed and mediated through images disseminated by internet technology and the popular media.
The printing errors that occur in the process of manipulation of the images are a recurring motif and a central metaphor in my work. Replicating these images in paint on canvas is a slow and time-consuming process which is the very antithesis of instantaneous image production techniques. Different levels of meaning occur in the juxtapositioning of these images, and in the interface between the found image, the distortions which occur in the process of technological reproduction and the manipulated image translated into paint on canvas.
The black and white of the photocopies, reproduced in the paintings, belies the vividness and complexity of ‘reality’ but accentuates the mediated nature of the way in which we experience this ‘reality’. The images become fragments of a greater whole - chance encounters that either resonate and remain or are seen and forgotten.
SELECTED WORKS
