poetry, poetics &c.
Keith GamacheARTIST PORTFOLIOTwo children, a boy and a girl, perhaps brother and sister, find the mall floor to be much more interesting than their parents' shopping. Islands of black tiles, surrounded by larger grey tiles, provide safety and shelter from whatever danger lurks in the sea of grey tiles. Jumping from black tiles to black tiles, they seem to be in competition with each other as much as with themselves. When one child is unsuccessful at reaching safety, he fakes a death and then continues playing. The other child takes great pleasure in this misfortune. Finally, the parents must enter another store, the adventure is put on hold, and the mall floor is once again just the mall floor - it is safe to walk anywhere.This game has no official rules. No words were exchanged between the children. Once started, they both understood that there was an area of safety they had to reach and an area of danger they had to avoid. Each child might have perceived the safe territory and the danger to be two different things. The girl could have been avoiding alligators as she jumped from marshy plot to marshy plot. The boy could have been leaping from rock to rock fearful of landing in quicksand. I thought they were both jumping from island to island avoiding shark infested waters. As in video games, death was not permanent. It was only a temporary set back and a marvelous excuse for drama. I don't know who won. If in fact there was a winner, it was most likely decided in the car while driving home or will be determined in a rematch at the next spontaneously agreed upon place. I've tried to capture this same sense of playfulness and reason in my paintings. Just as the children had no control over my interpretation of their game, I too, have little control over your interpretation of mine. The logic I've used to construct these paintings is personal and imperfect. We live according to rules. Our personal rules are formed by tradition, religion, government, education, and the media. Whether we choose to break or follow these rules, our actions are defined by how they relate to the rules. In this way our lives are very much like a game. However, in life there is no official rule book and the rules are constantly evolving. Sometimes there are rewards. Sometimes there are punishments. Most of the time, the rules just allow the game to continue. My work is about using existing and self-imposed rules. By breaking the rules and connecting the dots out of sequence, I create abstract shapes that are juxtaposed with the original representational images. The result is as intellectually challenging as it is delightfully playful. In these pieces I used actual pages from books aligned in various grid configurations. By connecting predetermined dots (for example, in a 5 by 5 grid of pages, I will connect the 5's) I create shapes that are calculated yet spontaneous at the same time. This system satisfies my need for control while allowing for unpredictable results. The rules are arbitrary (like getting three lives in a video game) but serve my purpose of creating something unfamiliar from the familiar, uncommon from the common place, random from the calculated, and abstract from the representational. Visit Keith's online portfolio at NeoImages.net.
|
| « pr_vi_us. | c_nt_nts. | n_xt. » |
th_ gallo_s. cur_ent i_sue. ar_hive. s_bmissions. merch_ndise. ed_tor_al off_ces.
H_NGM_N b _ _ ks.
©2005 H_NGM_N. poetry, poetics &c.
editor@h-ngm-n.com