Selected Time Based Media / Projections, 2021
Bridging the gap between the aura and the object with the quickly paced and exponentially expanding virtual space we all have found ourselves living in during the COVID-19 pandemic is a major concern within the work. As a visual artist, there is a strong tension between these two different sides of the art world. The push to move everything - gallery exhibitions, museum tours, art sales (NFTs), etc. - to the digital space threatens why we create art: to tell stories, to explore physical materials, and to feel the energy that objects emit. My practice sets out to merge them in order to satisfy both strings that pull in opposite directions. Is it possible to follow the instinctive urge to feel materials with my skin, to continue to physically push paint, charcoal, and ink around, to build and deconstruct layers, and to preserve the aura of the work while simultaneously succumbing to the rising world of digital art and NFTs? Does the materiality and the material allegory that communicates fragility and vulnerability become untranslatable when seen through a screen? How does the object stay preserved when NFTs and the virtual platform easily remove the object from the value? These are questions that drive the work.
Implementing a transdisciplinary approach that merges the physical object with video and projections is one possible solution. My process begins by capturing videos - vignettes - that are filled with experimental marks, textures, sounds, and various materials. In past work, the layering process was very crucial in exposing the fragility of the materials, and in parallel, the fragility of life. In order to attempt to bridge the gap while preserving this quality, this step is done digitally through various key framing and masking techniques.
The videos, which are filled with rich textures, layers, and expose the many physical qualities of art, are then projected onto specific materials and objects that relate to each projection. A projection of paper moving spills onto actual stacks of paper falling off the wall. An oil stick drawing circles is projected on a cylinder pole. I set out to blend the boundaries by playing with space, objects, and materials.
