Placebo

Abstract

The strategy chosen to make the majority of the work can be separated into three stages. The first stage of development is the process of collecting types of images or objects based on aesthetic and associative significance. Second, from this collection, materials are chosen and ordered formally in terms of scale, color, and point of view. The images and objects appropriated come to the work loaded with meaning. The inherent character of the materials selected suggests the concepts of originality, gender, spirituality, and beauty. For example, butterflies where chosen as metaphors for transformation, feminine beauty, and vulnerability. In the third stage, meaning is created by the way in which the materials are organized. Every image or object has a logic that dictates an appropriate system of order. Images of fish and butterflies are layered according to scale and color to create illusions of new or evolved representations. These two bodies of work combine to represent what I refer to as the New! Evolutions Series. This series mimics both the natural evolutionary process as well as the human motivation to speed up the process. Rather than seeking out evidence of natural evolution, new types of forms are developed by combining images. The artist replaces the scientist in a world where representation replaces reality. Photocopies are made of these collages for two wall-mounted assemblages. The original collage images are significantly unified through the process of making copies of copies to create artificial representations of type.