This piece had me genuinely surprised at my abilities to not only use unconventional materials to create art, but I also discovered my ability to add emotional weight to a piece. My journey in this artistic endeavour began on a day when I experienced an incredibly overwhelming shift in perspective. I basically went through a day of wandering around town alone to unfamiliar locations, seeking clarity and peace, and new scenery to connect these foreign sensations to. But to contrast, I spent a lot of time unexpectedly running into many of my close friends. Over the course of that day, I gathered a collection of materials that were either symbolic of a moment or feeling, or were artifacts found at each location. When I had overcome my intense experience, I decided to channel it into my artwork, and utilized all of the pieces i had subconsciously been gathering all day. My creative process began with carefully laying out all of the items in an observable display, and beginning with one piece at a time, consciously and thoughtfully placing it within the piece. I made sure to spend just enough time meditating on the incorporation of each element, but also relied on an unfamiliar decisiveness that i had gained from my experience. I taught myself to go with my natural instinct and not spend all my time dwelling upon every possible option, but just enough to be confident in my decision. This was a technique that i have always struggled with in art, I spend too much time thinking and not enough time executing, and I have a hard time trusting my own judgment with fear of ruining something. This was a huge personal hurdle that i find is reflected in this piece, perhaps not to the viewer, but to myself. The concept of this piece essentially was to capture the self defining experience I had, through material significance and collage, to give myself an illustrative account of that day. It was also a way for me to immortalize the things that held a deep weight, things that I wouldn’t want to keep in their individual states, but was willing to discard into a trash art piece.
The materials of this piece include; an old record case and its own record (post-mortem), cigarette butts, two dead hibiscus flowers, also dead sour grass stems, a purple gel, bandages in an ‘x’, a cut of pink cloth, an excerpt from a journal (of that day), a leftover note, and an addition of paint. All of the materials were compiled throughout the day, and each one holds symbolic meaning, but that which can’t be interpreted upon initial perception.
I find my pieces to have the most resemblance to the collages of Ray Johnson, because of the composition, the content, and the construction. He used commonplace materials, but ones with an unknown yet evident symbolic intention, something the viewer may never understand, but Ray will always hold the answers to. And that is something understood within the relationship of the viewer and the artist, that the viewer is left in mystery and curiosity. I also found parallels in the composition of the work, a time intensive layering of the materials, each one meticulously and carefully placed in chaotic harmony.
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