Edging recognition /
Challenging Perception

Collage is a philosophy of transformative curation that alters content via context manipulation. It differs from other forms of art in that everything used came from another place, where it had another purpose. This history may be bent, subverted, or mangled by its new application, but is always implicitly present. The tension between what was and what is may very well become the main focus of a collage.

My explorations into abstract expressionism have led me to confront the relationship between recognition and understanding. The two are instinctually linked: “I know what this is” leads quickly to “I know what this means,” but I have begun to experiment with challenging this instinct by intentionally turning one against the other. By cutting elements in such a way that they sit on the edge of recognizability, my pieces tempt the brain to understand them as what they were rather than the purpose they serve in the piece. And, because their new purpose is abstract, this tension becomes a fight between the conscious and subconscious.

The dissonance this fight creates mirrors socio-political discourse in an online world where everyone dresses their statements in layers of irony and people are increasingly isolated into separate social contexts that develop their own understandings of communication – and indeed of reality. The statement that one can truly take at face value is rare, and our politicians play in this realm of ambiguity to a degree our journalists are unequipped to report on. It therefore serves us, I believe, to stimulate our recognition centers in ways that challenge our perception – my hope is that exercises in discernment under adverse conditions will prepare one to look twice at statements or viewpoints that are deceptively straightforward. A claim made in isolation may seem to promote one way of thinking, but quite another when looked at within a larger pattern.