Artist's Statement
Art is about life. It is about our experience of the world, the angles and
permutations we see in it. Art can make us pose questions, ask for
difficult answers, or in some way mirror our way of being in the world.
Occasionally art can be a catalyst for internal conversation, it can reveal
to us aspects of ourselves. Any art that helps us to look at life with new
ideas, or imaginings is exciting to me.Some of the most powerful influences in my work are the intricacies of the human condition. By this I mean our relations with each other, our connections to nature, to history, to our cultures and, perhaps most intriguingly, our relationships with the different parts of ourselves. These all continue to fascinate me. After years of work with many troubled people (my first career was in clinical psychology), I believe I have an opportunity, as well as a real possibility, to further explore and portray the complexities of the human experience.
What inspires me is the way Shakespeare was able to portray complicated interrelationships in families such as power, love, and envy, or the way contemporary films evoke complex states within us. Through my work, I am able to respond to my own experiences, and to offer valid interpretations about some of these same complex subjects. Somehow, a playwright or screenwriter is able to make us think about ourselves in our context, by showing us, through the actors, some vagaries of their struggles in their contexts. Through the use of metaphors, symbols, materials and textures, I strive to offer another portal or view on some aspect our humanness that fascinates me. Given the complexities we all deal with it seems that the source for more artwork is thus inexhaustible. I am powerfully affected by form, line, and texture. Form is what first usually grabs us about an object, it will strike us or interest us bring us to the work. The lines are what take us into and out of that work often leading us to new discoveries, new locations. Eventually these can coalesce into meaning. Finally, texture captivates and holds us, it is what makes us want to touch and re-touch these works. Tactility embodies complexity, emotion, diversity and 'feel'. The interplay of these three elements contribute to my efforts at developing my own artistic vernacular. I am very impressed with the ability of a three dimensional work to capture us, hold our attention and take us elsewhere, away from the world as we know it the everyday world.
My hope is to instill a sense of curiosity and wonder in the viewer. I want the observer to interact with my artwork in a private conversation that leaves them richer as a result. I also strive to bring several simultaneous meanings to my work, thus allowing the patient converser to come back many times, seeing and saying different things each time, similar to reading the same book over and over.
"Art is the act of pursuing."
- Charles Parsons
- Charles Parsons
"Those parts of our being that extend beyond the individual ego cannot survive unless they can be constantly articulated. "
- L. Hyde The Gift
- L. Hyde The Gift