2011 Student Thesis Exhibition
Title
Preview
Creation Date
Spring 2011
Medium
Latex paint
Disciplines
Art and Design | Art Practice
Description
Artist's Statement
I have a preconceived notion about what paint is and what it’s made up of, what it looks like, and what it can do. Painting is made up of three components, the stretcher bar, the canvas, and the paint itself. But when you break it down, which part is really the painting? Which part is the actual “THING” that we consider a “painting?”
I’ve been creating paint blobs, using the essential part of a painting, the paint. Without the paint itself, the painting would cease to be a painting in and of itself. The paint acclimatizes well to its surroundings; it fits into almost every mold, and shapes itself to whatever it is nearby, taking on the form of its surroundings. It also is indefinable, a thing that is not one thing, but many, and a thing that can’t be identified or defined. I am this “thing.” I cannot be defined, I have a definition, but that definition gets you no closer to understanding who I am. The paint skins are made up of latex paint, they are a shape, they are skin-like, but none of that tells you what they are. This is the idea of being defined through what you are not, the definition explaining what cannot be explained or defined.
So, if they cannot be defined, what is their identity? My identity? They don’t fit anywhere, they can change and become whatever the viewer, and the artist needs them to be. But they still lack a definition, and identity. If you can fit into any shape or form, if you can mold yourself (itself) into anything at all, to fit in with your surroundings, and if you can be present, but at the same time absent in definition, then are you a thing, or an object at all? I want to create an explanation for something that cannot be defined, something that has no identity, no identifier. If it fits everywhere, then where do you put it? How do you work with it? If there isn’t a problem in its placement, then should you fix it? Should you change it? Essentially, what if it just IS. It’s just there, it exists, but it exists within its own contexts; its own dimensions that aren’t available for the description of any other thing (person). Then what do you do?
Recommended Citation
Worcester, Jenny, "Thing One" (2011). 2011 Student Thesis Exhibition. Image. Submission 1.
https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/avc_thesis2011/1
Keywords
painting
Comments
This work appeared in concentrated chaos, the 2011 Thesis/Portfolio Exhibition at Linfield College. Photograph courtesy of Jenny Worcester.