Artist Statement
The idea of a line is infinite and “breadthless” and it comes from an abstract space. Lines have importance in my work providing a straightforward and simple mathematic reference to mapping my unbounded thoughts. With time, I have found multiple ways of defining my intensions for using lines in my art. Considering the most basic artistic notion of a line (a long, narrow mark or band) and extending it to poetry, math and literature reveals a diversity of perspectives. As an infinite line can be bounded to be used as a notional limit or physical boundary, one can begin to understand the graphic quality that a line segment can bring to composition. Line informs space.
I have always believed that lines start in conceptual places. Line segments allow viewers to begin to understand what has been created and what is being communicated. It has the ability to move and create interest reminiscent of an assemblage of materials to create one piece, one thing made up of multiple conjunctions of lines. This idea in consideration with creation starts my thoughts on a path of relating line to family and defining this thought. This thought gets elaborated to what can get passed down from generation to generation. I start focusing on simple ideas such as hard work being passed down as an idea and move onto larger concepts of destructive sociopolitical cycles.
The passing down of traits from generation to generation in a bloodline is direct. Specific things that cause people to be anxious could be something one might inherit from a father’s line - your eye color, your hair color or wondering if male hair loss truly comes from your mother’s side of the family. Could it make sense that hard work is passed down the bloodline in a similar way? Or is this question more about the balance between nature and nurture? My exploration around this conversation has resulted in a poetic, humorous and scientific internal dialogue as it relates to the line.
I believe that hard work is often a characteristic that you receive from your family and surroundings. This is apparent when an agricultural family has to work hard to coordinate what they do with the weather as they rely on it to transform dirt and seed into currency. In the ever-advancing economics of The United States of America, hard work has evolved from a family adapting from farming and raising vegetables, corn, and beef to working on assembly lines to producing air conditioners and cars. A family works these jobs in order to buy the latest in the line of Dodge Caravans so they can parade it to another line, such as a line in a movie theater for a movie ticket or to the latest line of shoes.
With all of these lines, they curve back on themselves to end at the same point they started, thus forming a cycle. The culture that I understand revolves around family, corn, and machines, which is a specific example of line as a cycle. In this culture, there is an embedded philosophy that focuses on “one-liners” as a form of sincere, but dire way of communicating, which is a broken way of understanding feelings. Just by asking the programed, “How are you?” and getting the automated response of “Fine,” shows how spoken lines affect simple aspects of our lives. This is an example of points on a line and how we use the communication line to feed information just as expected, keeping a status quo in order to follow the lines that were planned out before us. In my art I am tracing this and similar lines and comparing them to my line of memory, thus reflecting and commenting on the culture I was surrounded in, even if I never fully understand it. The lines in my work branch off to form many layers. I invite viewers to interact with my art to help me sort the “layers” of lines and in so doing, they may also discover my visual and poetic struggle with the line.
