Sites of Power
Sites of Power recently emerged from a previous series From Here as a separate, but related, body of work. These paintings continue to be based on photographs of scale models, and the distortion that occurs as imagery is translated from one medium to another remains significant: the “real” thus endures a substantial filtration process and the viewer’s relationship with it becomes estranged. While From Here addresses issues of power and powerlessness as manifested in human interaction during wartime, Sites of Power is an exploration of built structures in which abstract power is embodied or performed. These sites belong to a variety of domains including politics, military, commerce, learning, and religion.
Rendered photographically, but with severe cropping and awkward perspective, the images are reduced to formal composition, pattern and color, remaining only minimally recognizable. These quasi-abstract paintings return the reified concept of power to an abstract state, denuding the structures of the power they once wielded. Further erosion occurs as moments of material imperfection are highlighted: cracks in plaster, Astroturf that is curling up from its substrate, water stains on tarmac. An element of human frailty and disintegration is thus inserted into the otherwise flawless model. The paintings’ photographic references suggest a place one could visit, but the high point-of-view discomfits the viewer, leaving her unsure how to physically relate to the space and producing unease as she attempts to navigate these abstract power structures.
From Here
These paintings employ the naïve language of toys, models, and plastic dolls to investigate the unsettling realm of international political conflict. Many Americans experience events in Iraq solely through imagery mediated by news outlets, or other filtration systems. These paintings replicate the process of filtration, and the inevitable simplification and distortion of facts, as real-world signifiers are transformed first into a model, then into a photograph, and finally, into a painting.
Seen from a safe distance, imagery of the war elicits a range of responses including, among others, voyeurism, apathy, denial, self-concern, and impotent compassion. The fighting there is clearly far from over. But as our soldiers and correspondents return, the war also comes home, along with a multiplicity of painful struggles that will remain with us for many years. These paintings examine some of the many ways Americans have experienced the Iraq war. Model figures and toy dolls represent the housewife, the student, the businessman, and the soldier, all occupying the uneasy utopia of a model world. External signifiers, which suggest a greater embattled reality, interrupt this world and impose themselves on the viewer.
Sites of Power recently emerged from a previous series From Here as a separate, but related, body of work. These paintings continue to be based on photographs of scale models, and the distortion that occurs as imagery is translated from one medium to another remains significant: the “real” thus endures a substantial filtration process and the viewer’s relationship with it becomes estranged. While From Here addresses issues of power and powerlessness as manifested in human interaction during wartime, Sites of Power is an exploration of built structures in which abstract power is embodied or performed. These sites belong to a variety of domains including politics, military, commerce, learning, and religion.
Rendered photographically, but with severe cropping and awkward perspective, the images are reduced to formal composition, pattern and color, remaining only minimally recognizable. These quasi-abstract paintings return the reified concept of power to an abstract state, denuding the structures of the power they once wielded. Further erosion occurs as moments of material imperfection are highlighted: cracks in plaster, Astroturf that is curling up from its substrate, water stains on tarmac. An element of human frailty and disintegration is thus inserted into the otherwise flawless model. The paintings’ photographic references suggest a place one could visit, but the high point-of-view discomfits the viewer, leaving her unsure how to physically relate to the space and producing unease as she attempts to navigate these abstract power structures.
From Here
These paintings employ the naïve language of toys, models, and plastic dolls to investigate the unsettling realm of international political conflict. Many Americans experience events in Iraq solely through imagery mediated by news outlets, or other filtration systems. These paintings replicate the process of filtration, and the inevitable simplification and distortion of facts, as real-world signifiers are transformed first into a model, then into a photograph, and finally, into a painting.
Seen from a safe distance, imagery of the war elicits a range of responses including, among others, voyeurism, apathy, denial, self-concern, and impotent compassion. The fighting there is clearly far from over. But as our soldiers and correspondents return, the war also comes home, along with a multiplicity of painful struggles that will remain with us for many years. These paintings examine some of the many ways Americans have experienced the Iraq war. Model figures and toy dolls represent the housewife, the student, the businessman, and the soldier, all occupying the uneasy utopia of a model world. External signifiers, which suggest a greater embattled reality, interrupt this world and impose themselves on the viewer.
