Strange as it may seem, it has taken most of the twentieth century for collage to be taken seriously as a major art form. It is now clear that a technical miracle has taken place in the past century. Of all the art media that originated, collage is one of the most far-reaching. Collage was one of the first media to recycle existing materials. No one artist has been credited with the origin of collage, because it occurred spontaneously at the beginning of this century. Collage is the only new visual, well-defined, art medium during the twentieth-century and assemblage is one of the two most important innovations of modern art, the other being abstraction. No other developments in twentieth-century art have opened up to artists more avenues of new aesthetic inquiry than collage and assemblage. The elements of collage and assemblage are separately noticeable which makes them quintessential modern mediums.
Collage turned three –dimensional is called assemblage. My work is developed from the collage tradition. More than an art technique, collage represents a state of mind that runs parallel to the modern world. Cutting and pasting have introduced irreversible change into the age-old pictorial rectangle, and have altered the ways that visual space is perceived. Contemporary sculpture has changed, and my work is at the forefront and an integral part of that change, in the main stream of modern art moving into the new millennium. The evidence of this artists’ hand is crucial to the sometimes-strange mix that is art; thusly, the work speaks of presence in the real-space interaction between viewer and object.
I tend to explore art and scale in two & three-dimensional formats. That, to me is the path to growth and avoids stagnation and limitation. There is a challenge in the process of moving back and forth with the dimension, style, and scale. Also, an opportunity to interact and incorporate findings of the disciplines involved.
With emphasis on three-dimensional expressions, the interest is focusing on a collaborative effort to make stronger connections with the universal language of musical power, and its effects on the spiritual power. Defining more accurately what I refer to as Audio -Visual Abstraction, a fusion of art and music. That phenomenon occurring in the creative process of making a visual statement in conjunction with listening to improvisational jazz. Turning towards the intensely spiritual inspired Jazz artists such as John Coltrane, Billy Harper, and others for study and stimulation of the spirit through music. I truly believe art should be “felt” as well as seen, and music should be “felt” and not merely “heard.”
DG
