AS ABOVE
Solo Exhibition at Stephanie Chefas Projects, January 2019
Above can only been seen or suggested with a knowledge and perspective of below. A constant state of rotational mirroring, a balance. This relationship is based on the connections between two unrelated and opposing points.
Nonlinear narratives and automatic drawing have become the basis for this work, self-organizing symmetries in the natural world. Affected by elemental conditions, objects in the world are organized in a way that is neither crystalline nor inorganic. Water erosion sculpts mountains, and life populates those exposed fertile pockets. Thematic and fluid, these natural symmetries are accentuated through repetition which in turn create texture and form structures in negative space. After doing this work for years, I’ve noticed a correlation between my drifting thoughts and the results of semi-automatic markmaking. This at first unintentionally mirrors the correlation between our collective psyches and our environment. Now that this awareness has revealed itself with more clarity, I’ve become more interested in allowing this world to bend, torque, snap, and buckle. Tectonic plates. Displacement. Witnessing social paradigm shifts while wildfires burn. Psychological stressors form a parallel to the environmental catastrophe happening around us in physical reality.
This new work moves beyond this set of logical assumptions. What is the natural mind? What can be obtained from an “archaic” mind? The modern technological supposition that we are the highest order of human to live on this planet is flanked by a great body of thought still influencing our lives, an ancient mind unable to separate subjective and objective, finding meaning in every great cosmic or earthly rumbling. This old mindset still holds a key to linking these realities. It’s also this archaic mind that got us in this present predicament. Which is a predicament in itself.
Above is a shifting cosmos, a cold, chaotic wind of dreams, power, and potentiality. Below are ever eroding foundations of our past and present. Everything erodes. Life trickles in, flourishes, and disappears. Supervised by our resident solar deities, their light is only perceived by the living, and is the only real protagonist here.
