the jungle of post-modern symbolism in contemporary culture
This current series of paintings is about subverting formalism by turning its conventions on itself. This strategy is a way to deconstruct minimal and formal abstraction, explicating its means and methods by taking it apart and observing how its parts (motif, structure, color, mark, etc.) function. The 'freeze-dried' gestures utilized are mere representations, codified so as to further remove them from normative readings of expression, converting them to objectified 'motifs'. This objectification transforms both the functions and the implications of these elements, presenting a finished product that thwarts pre-conceived notions. My intention is to describe a metaphoric territory where gesture, line, motif and color lead through a distinct, personalized language of abstraction to a more general explication of its concerns. The paintings are an investigation of a way to paint that deals with both new solutions to formal problems and a way of working through the multiplicity of abstract visual motifs that constitute the jungle of post-modern symbolism in contemporary culture, to arrive at a relevant interpretation of painting in this day and age. I hope the work will be a contribution to and a provocation of a renewed concern with painting as a meaning based activity, a product of both aesthetic thought and material intention.
