Self-Evaluated Artist Statement

Everyone I know has a phone that can capture, distill, refine and enhance any situation into an impressive image.  If this is so, then why would the (relatively) slow human-processed image have any contemporary relevance? While I cannot answer this question universally, I can answer it through myself.

“On reflecting why I make the Art that I do”

I was raised without artistic influence, training or discipline. My parents were not equipped to deal with the energy, intense passions and difficult personality of a developing artist. Additionally, growing up in a rural place with a history and future of mining and industry, who thinks about personal and community betterment in the forms of the intellectual or cultural? No one for all I’ve learned. That’s okay, I understand it is safer to follow social standards than to start asking questions. Questions sometimes lead to doors that people find easier to keep closed.

But I had questions, and I wanted answers. Without the resource of a safe place to ask these questions, I turned to the outdoors and let my imagination take over. I made meagre attempts to express myself utilizing all I had- a pencil and paper.  Life was frustrating, I was frustrated. As I got older, I hoped that I would be able to search for those answers when I left home. I earned my BFA in Drawing (all that I knew) but I still did not have the developed skills I needed to make my work more effective.  I moved to the West Coast, and yet there was more I had to know. So, I went back to my childhood home to get my answers.

I had gained a little influence and training. Not enough, but I knew I had something. Yet, it had almost been harder living back at home the second time around. My questions had become more specific and directed. I had to earn it, but I finally figured out that I have a love and belief in life and an urgent need to express myself about it, not just for myself, but for everyone.  In a way, I had begun to learn how to become a “life experience distiller and interpreter”. Life can be simple or it can be difficult or it can be both. It’s frequently riddled with all that confusion, ugliness and sorrow I always had trouble understanding. But when I make my work, I keep all of this in mind, I connect the frustration with the beauty. Because I have learned that we need all of it. It is who I am and who we all are, and it is my job to open up the discussions about this.

I don’t try to make abstract or complicated work. Life already hands us that. I don’t even adhere to contemporary ideals on what “good” art is.  I’m not playing any games to try to advance myself with popularity or financially.  No, instead I have decided to develop some ability to make recognizable imagery.  To emulate the likeness of nature (whether in a tree or a human) is a form of admiration. I don’t want my viewers confused at what they are looking at. I want to give them the little head start I missed out on. However, I am not interested in handing out answers either. I don’t assume to have anyone’s answer.

As impressive as the images of our devices get, they do not process multitudes of experiences into an attempt to help other humans. Our western culture has so much now, it’s beginning to clog our minds and (eventually) it will our souls. We need (and desire) the convolutions of life. Because without them, we will never find the satisfaction of our work. It’s my job to think about all of it, and transcend.  My human processed Art and Images will be those doorways to help the viewer find their own questions.