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Pedestrian View This series of paintings
and sculptures is inextricably linked to the visions of the pedestrian view. It is a study of people and the urban detritus
surrounding them. These street level
views are captured while passing through cities both familiar and foreign. Using the tools of digital photography as my sketch
book I am able to record an immediate and abundant archive of visual information. In Miami, a day at the races, becomes a voyeuristic view of individual interactions
and undisclosed emotions. On the streets of Lisbon, young men engage in ritualistic transgressions of expression against
political and economic orders and a walk through the narrow streets of Geneva reveals international concerns and cultural
diversities. Much like the history and genre paintings of the old masters these narratives become documentation. My interest in the formal aspects of painting is what drives me to record
these images in traditional oil paints alo
Art is flat
"The
World is Flat" declares Thomas Friedman in the title of his best seller. He elucidates this point by citing the internet,
technology and outsourcing as only a few of the twenty first century phenomena that have leveled the global playing field.
Taking Friedman's conclusion one step further we may declare that "Art" has also been flattened. Artists today like
Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst orchestrate art objects that are global, high tech and outsourced. With newly adopted and reconfigured
conceptual strategies and codes accepted in the art world today, everything is art and everyone is an artist. There no longer
exists a hierarchy of skill and craft. Today's artist is no longer bound by a dogmatic school buried in tradition. We have
adopted a collective decree that anything and everything is art. This assertion was defiantly demonstrated in 1917 by Marcel
Duchamp when he took a gentleman's urinal, signed it and put it on display as "Art". Since Duchamp, artists have
continued to shock the art establishment and redefine contemporary culture.
I am of the opinion that art
should have a relationship with society. This relationship may be one of pure aesthetic pleasure or in the form of a conversation
in order to fulfill a larger purpose. Artistic considerations of everyday objects when recycled and transformed evoke an ephemeral
sense of nostalgia, but it is the process and traditional technical skills that will heighten our perceptions numbed by huge
amounts of high tech visual data.
I seek to reintroduce the tactility missing in this flat screened
world by committing to traditional art making materials while incorporating newly established resources and nontraditional
objects. The internet, technology and outsourcing may have flattened the world but a fine balance of spirit and matter will
illuminate the landscape.
Jami
Nix Rahn 2006
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