Cloud Formation Study No. 1 Print

I start with the idea that the meaning of an artwork is primarily unknown until engaged with by a viewer. The meaning the viewer finds is personal and resides only in the mind of imagination. Any attempt by the artist to say what their art means is best viewed as intention. There is both the personal meaning for those who engage with the artwork and a cultural meaning. The cultural meaning is continually constructed through a process in which the culture the artwork is embedded in, engages with the artwork. Said in another way, the viewing of the artwork by many viewers (or rather many, many countless viewers) constructs its meaning. This meaning is both created and discovered in a process that takes place through time, always becoming but never arriving. Moreover, this meaning is first and foremost personal. I attempt to create such personally meaningful artworks by engaging with ideas and subject matter that I am interested in and find personally meaningful. These ideas have to do with perception and how it changes depending on how deeply we engage with the object of our gaze. I look to represent familiar objects, technologies, and genres in order to rethink generally held notions, assumptions, and beliefs by seeing with new perspectives, angles or framing. Asking about the meaning is one approach when viewing an artwork. However, when art is perceived as a technology, it assumes new functionality. Typically, the meaning of technology is not questioned; rather, its purpose and application are of interest. Thus, when art is utilised as a technology, it allows for the transcendence of commonly held views and beliefs, leading to the discovery of new insights and understandings about reality. One looks at an artwork to see beyond it. What is depicted is not the thing itself but rather an interface or conduit through which perception is altered.