What defines identity? There is more to it than "identity is who you are". As people we individually identify with communities greater than ourselves, with society, collective entities that often dictate certain protocols, perception, and cultural codes. So, to an extent, we are what they say we are, or what we are supposed to be. As a person of mixed racial and ethnic background, I am quite familiar with existing in and identifying with two different groups at once. Although I identify with two unique cultures, I am often pressured to choose between the two, which makes me sometimes feel that I am not a part of either camp, but in my own grey area between the two. What interests me about all this is picking up on the tools and methods that people use to identify themselves, and then visually re/deconstructing them. Some examples might be clothing and fashion, social cliques, race, sexuality, language, possession, and nowadays technology.
I attempt to do this in my work in a number of ways, though primarily by juxtaposing or marrying seemingly opposite imagery. By presenting an image or collection of images that has something amiss, something that seems contradictory to our normal way of perceiving, I hope to momentarily confuse my audience. The approach varies depending on the project, but I try and stick to simple materials in the presentation of my prints and collages. Wood, clay, string, and nails maintain the handmade quality that I can think can be found in prints, while simultaneously belying the occasional modern and technologically generated content of my imagery.
My way of working, as well as my desire to engage the viewer through a sort of “double-take” reaction, stems from what I believe to be the human experience as well as my own personal life and my imagination; my own personal search for self, which is constantly influx. Through playing with notions of truth and perception, I want people to temporarily join me in uncertainty, and investigate, question, and reevaluate the way in which they see the subject matter as well as themselves.
Fascinating...
ReplyDeleteYour statement reminds me of something stuart hall said about 'postmodernity': "Thinking about my own identity, i realized that it had always depended on being a migrant, on the difference from the rest of you. So one of the fascinating things about this discussion is that I find myself centered at last. Now that, in the postmodern age, you all feel so dispersed, I become centered."
I think that there is something about his statement there that speaks to both the ugly and liberating qualities of what we call postmodernism, or even deconstruction. I like how you are not afraid to play around in the muck, as it were.
I am wondering, however, about this "one little thing" that you keep coming back to, which is supposed to de-center or throw off the work or contribute to this kind of "double-take." I am wanting to know more about what this is motivated by. You say that you want your audience to re-evaluate their own self-identifying mechanisms, or to own up to them, in a sense. I am wondering, once we have recognized these identificatory forces, which are by no means exclusively our own (as your art suggests), where does that leave us? Ok... let me put it simply... (and, as usual, I am not urging you to necessarily answer these questions)
Is it all just mediation, then? What is at the core, if anything? Is there a way in which opening the viewer's eyes to a certain reality about identity, one could also be closing the viewer's eyes to something else? In other words, do you think your work closes any doors? Does it make any finally normative claims?
Is de-construction ever guilty of a kind of moral paralysis?
I love your work, Alex, and I myself find it very enlightening.
I am speaking here mostly about your statement. You say a lot (and I know I am too), and I think you may consider refining it into something more particular. I say this only because I feel that this statement doesn't really do justice to your art. Mostly, it doesn't do justice to the way in which your work feels really GROUNDED, do you know what I mean? Your art never registers as being on some other plane, like a lot of art with a statement similar to yours might come off as. It is grounded, of course, while it also disorients. I like the balance you strike in your work in this regard, and feel that this balance is not fully addressed in the statement. Maybe its something you CAN'T fully address in a statement, though... i can appreciate this possibility.
But that is just me, and of course I would be happy to elaborate on how I feel you may be able to refine it. If you feel I have been too ambiguous, just catch me through email, class, or this blog, and I will happily elaborate
Nice work here. In my opinion, you are hitting some really crucial points. I just feel you need to center them a little more.