Creation:The Space Between:Consumption: DUEL - Body of work for two-person exhibition

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

DUEL - Body of work for two-person exhibition

An anonymous aggressor, the black silhouette having no identity, it is empty and valueless. This is why they are easy to destroy and so open to accept violence. How can I add value and preciousness to these figurative forms? And how do I break from the tradition to create something different? I wanted these nameless bodies to have an identity. It was important to undermine the original intentions of the gun target.

The addition of a human, identifiable face was important to develop a relationship with an audience; to close the distance between the dark and the light. These playful portraits are funny and silly, awkward moments captured on the faces of my family. They are carnival like, as if you are playing a game at the midway. Some of the shooters are more successful than others at this game. There was also a personal struggle in utilizing individuals close to me. Do I allow others or even myself to shoot at these targets?

The portraits are bright, garish in color with corresponding gun(s) to create visual cohesion throughout the target picture plane. The “gunshot” leaves a mark/geometry on the surface, which is incorporated into the image. Sometimes these marks are random, as if from a novice shooter. In other cases, they are pattern like and clearly shot from a marksman.

The “duel” occurs visually between the gun targets of John Adkins and Kristen Woodward; because of their differences – abstraction versus definition; graphical versus painterly and anonymous versus named. They challenge the audience conceptually inside the artworks and externally due to their relationship with recent gun related tragedies (plural). You cannot leave without being influenced and marked by the experience.