Automatism Experiments
Automatism Experiments-Sequential Progressions (2002-2008)
The Automatism series of experiments and studies bring together automatism and chance techniques with figurative/representational imagery and content. As a result may also mirror absurdist, nonsensical imagery, while the idea of the photograph as an objective, single image, a moment caught in time is negated partly through the visual mutation of images and physical manipulation of the photograph itself. With a semi-conscious autonomy over movements, gestures and expressions the aim was to defy logical or literal interpretation. Firstly, I tried to utilize the concepts of surrealist automatism in realizing the poses and capturing moving gestures/forms in space through part chance improvisation and part rational performance after which are selected, used as source material finished collages. In one sense they are attempts to realize a visualization of Breton's champs magnétiques and R. Steiner's Anthroposophical conception of Eurythmy, in the attempt to produce a brief psychological glimpse into the subconscious, the unknown, or the creation of a desired idiosyncratic sight linked to a debased form of scopophilia.
Investigating these ideas led to more direct attempts to deconstruct, and subvert historical relationships to artistic working methods often associated with artist/model, portrait traditions, figurative representation in a broader sense. Less conscious was the choreographic aspect, the spontaneous reactions became dance-like and I also liked the instantaneous results, working quickly and with only a general subtext, helped to avoid a rational thought process, leaving much open to spontaneity and chance. The austerity, minimalist style, awareness of pattern and other design elements also developed in the process and with continued experimentation. Linear time became a central element as well, the suggestion of a cinematic moment caught between two sequential frames began to emerge. The performance-like results convey an element of theater and energy that I liked. Surrealist Choreography might be an apt description. I was also thinking about Yves Klein's Anthropometries and how the figure becomes the dominate medium. The collages are made from original Kodak C-41 glossy color prints (the "one-hour" film-based chemical/machine process since outdated and discontinued).
"Pure psychic automatism ... the dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason and outside all moral or aesthetic concerns" -Andre Breton (from Manifeste du Surrealisme, 1924)
Collage Studies- Works on Paper
(4x5" film-based C-prints, 4x5" mounted on arches paper 15x22" each)
AE Study #2
AE Study #5
AE Study #10
Large Scale C-Prints
Untitled Diptych (Automatism Experiment #1) 2002, C- prints mounted on plexiglass, 20x60" overall
Portfolio of Six Automatism Experiments C-prints mounted on board 16x20" image size each (one of a kind single edition)
Sequential Progressions (2002-2008)
Sequential Experiment- Serial Progression, C-prints mounted on plexiglass, 16x60" (overall)
About this work
The manual kitchen mixer is a reoccurring object in my early works and in part is a nod and homage to the same and similar mechanical objects prevalent in Dada and Surrealist art. Not unlike Duchamp's chocolate grinder, is a ready made, mechanized, mundane/domestic object drawn from the artist's immediate surroundings takes on added significance when placed within a suggestive narrative context. They are pictures that remain ambiguous the longer you look, but where "seeing" will establish meaning, which is only an option for those who engage on a certain emotional or psychological level of seeing.
Midday is a popular time that reflects a solar balance providing a sense of calm, harmony, symmetry, an optimal time for clarity of mind and vision in facilitating forms of transcendence.
%20.jpg)
About this work
The manual kitchen mixer is a reoccurring object in my early works and in part is a nod and homage to the same and similar mechanical objects prevalent in Dada and Surrealist art. Not unlike Duchamp's chocolate grinder, is a ready made, mechanized, mundane/domestic object drawn from the artist's immediate surroundings takes on added significance when placed within a suggestive narrative context. They are pictures that remain ambiguous the longer you look, but where "seeing" will establish meaning, which is only an option for those who engage on a certain emotional or psychological level of seeing.