Artist Statement

 

 

Modernism and conceptualism are both over 100 years old. One based on a formalist approach; the other on a contextual one. The two mainstream have generated many sons, grandsons, and so on. I decided to break with the formal identity by using any language that comes to me in the flow of my work. Representational or abstract, influenced by realism or interpretative like expressionism cubism, or any other formal gag, all exposed on the same plane. A cultural puzzle much like walking in our globalized metro areas or cyberspace, a mix of that Babel noise of everything. At this point my work would be justified conceptually, but just a one level vision, the rational approach. I decided to create a dialog much more on the perceptual side assembling together those contradictory formal telling in a harmonic plane, creating a whole by itself much like the concept of collage, and even using the idea of reference to bring the parts together while being aware of gestalt and rhythm. By using an aesthetic approach and appealing for a perceptual relation, I also broke with the conceptual and other Duchamp’s urinal sons. I suppose I am playing my own reading of William Blake’s Fourfold Vision, mystics aside, being the fourth - the transcendental - the common field between the creator and observer, a living and participative act of will from both sides. It means the artwork will only be complete and reveal itself when the interaction occurs generating a new and unique experience. “L’art c’est vivre!”

 

Noah Elam