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| Artist Statement for ?Invocations:?
Archeologists have theorized that early cave paintings, such as those at Lascaux and Altamira, were a kind of shamanistic creative visualization. In effect, a supernatural attempt to gain some sort of control in an unpredictable world. If we paint ourselves being successful in the hunt, perhaps it was thought, then our success will be insured. It is in this spirit that I am creating a new series of paintings tentatively titled ?Invocations.?
In these new works I am combing this return to the roots of painting with a love for the intersection of image and text. With historical precedents spanning from illuminated manuscripts and Mexican retablo painting to contemporary visionary works and graffiti, the relationship of word to image has been a powerful one. For each work I have first written the properties of various herbs that correspond to particular botanical remedies directly on the support. After that, I have submerged the words in painted images of the herbs themselves which are rendered in direct relation to the to the proportions of each plant used in the remedy.
The result is a magical depiction of need and the plant life that attends it. The word and the image come together to act as the thing itself.
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