Travel Guide for...

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on December 9, 2014 at 7:21pm

Curator’s Comments:

 

This formative printed piece, Travel Guide for Eco tourists is a multidimensional work, bringing together suggestive graphic elements with expressive primary color.  The manipulated blue washes in the background soften the sharp contrast of the pictographic relief printings (or are the silkscreened?)  Luring the viewer into the folding narrative, the piece reads as a posted guide, or some other universal attendant.  I like the subtext of travel companion; assuming a certain familiarity, if not intended intimacy. The repetition of the image soothes in its rhythmic formality, but there is also a disturbing quality in its ever-increasing direction and assertion of contextual disregard.  We choose to do whatever we wish. The images themselves speak to environmental excess or trauma; just as the camera becomes a watchful but anonymous observer to the carnage. But I also interpret the visual reduction of the danger of these choices to plain objects as bringing an element of droll humor to the piece. It’s as if the absurdity of the truth is needed to release the tension of the inevitable.  I especially enjoy viewing these works in the context of your portfolio; I realize I had commented on another one of your paintings a while back.  While it doesn’t share obvious compositional relationships, the adroit negotiation of text and painterly expression to reveal natural consequences is potently evident.  

Comment by Rachel Simmons on April 12, 2010 at 9:12am

It's actually just really sturdy rice paper. Thanks for the comment!

Comment by Brian Statom on April 10, 2010 at 12:45pm

Very cool. Is this fabric? I cant tell if it is stiff or just hangs. Great images.