Artist Statement

In my work, erasure, fragmentation and simplification represent the imperfect, limited nature of memory and the constant notion of flux we experience in an increasingly digital world. In many cases, I want to create incomplete templates, scenarios that serve as blanks to fill in, rather than specific individuals or events. The constant tech evolution is one of contemporary society's main themes, something I’ve experienced throughout my life. Pixelation and computer manipulation represent the merging of the physical and digital reality, while the people in the images and those old things that were once so important, represent how quickly things change.

Pigment transfers convert the initial digital image to a physical form. The image retains the hard edge of the pixels or the realism of the photograph, but the precision of the digital state erodes immediately through the scrubbing involved in the transfer process, representing the imminent deterioration of objects in the the physical world. Permanent marker drawings further transfer the precisions of the digital image to a hand drawn as-close-as-possible reproduction in the simplistic medium of marker. The drawings keep the idea on a smaller, more playful, colorful scale. Paintings are the ultimate attempt to convert the original digital image into the physical form. Unlike the pigment transfers and drawings, the variables in a painting have many more layers and are susceptible to human error. The final image is always a slightly flawed representation of the original digital form, illustrating the inherent differences between the physical and digital, as well as the way memory, over time, changes.

Boombox

Hollis Brown Thornton

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