i’ve always loved old printing- the fonts, the flat colours, the bitmap of dotted colours, the slightly aged and augmented colours, the works. when i was out buying the fridge from an op shop in silverdale, they had buy 5 for $1 national geographic books, of which i tried to get as many as i could from before the year 2000 (they changed the printing method to a cleaner, glossier one which i don’t stan as much.)
so, as a result of my new acquisition, a lot of my art that i’ve been making has been collage – for it seems to satisfy my desire to add comedy and sometimes dark humour to my work, and to amend the issue i was facing with wasting materials. all the materials were super cheap and have all so far proved to provide good entertainment and creative fulfilment.
my favourite works have been the ones that i made using the old postcards i got from a devonport charity shop, and the nat-geo magazines. my favourite method of making them is to flick through the magazines first to cut out all of the images i find amusing or interesting, then i go through again and pull out all of the text extracts that i think could work wonderfully out of context, then i mash them together to create a rather non-sensical mess, like the one below.
“Alligator Plume” is one of my favourites because the image of a woman and both pieces of text are extracted from their context and forced into this new context of this postcard, to which they sit rather incongruously.
it reminds me of something i remember reading about DaDa artists during the first world war. that “the refusal of war, work, art, authority, seriousness, and rationality made sense in the shadow of the horrors,”[1] that DaDa artists were working in a world where making sense meant sending young men to die, and as a result they didn’t want to be a part of making sense at all.
i cant help but feel that the humour of our generation, like the DaDa artists, has become completely non-sensical. the world is such a terrifying place to be in. our earth is dying and the people in charge turn a blind eye because their pockets are being filled by the corporations killing the planet- the same politicians trying to pass awful laws that will hurt thousands – even millions of people- except society doesn’t care because some celebrity somewhere said something dumb on the internet and its all just a mess. people that do seem to make sense are the minority – scrambling to make as much of a difference as they can before its too late.
my peers and i are living in a world where things making ‘sense’ is becoming obsolete. we have been repeatedly shown by the people in charge that apparently even though it might be the option that makes most sense, the option that doesn’t hurt people or the option that saves the planet – means nothing against the option that makes the most money.
the other thing about art that makes no sense is that people tend to be put off by “modern” art (yes, i know) because they don’t understand it. i want to make art that tricks ignorant people into spending time with it – use things they’re familiar with, like magazine headings and photographic imagery, which makes them then ask “well what does it mean?” to which the fancy little sign on the wall in auckland art gallery next to my work (one day) will say “by not understanding this work the artist forces you into the same state of confusion that she feels about the world 24/7”
so i think i enjoy making art that doesn’t make sense- and i think ill keep making it- until peer critique revels that i’m wildly out of touch or until i find something else i’m interested in.
Bibliography:
becks ireland 