Jason
Burrell
Artist's
Statement
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In
front of us is industry -- the world that was built, with I-beams,
iron, brick, cinder blocks, plywood, paper, glass, plexiglas,
fiberglass, steel, rebar and plastic disposability. The imposition
of bureaucracy and policy over contact is the largest of nightmares
and most tragic of fates. This vision is transformed in the
surrogate medium of drawing.
The decaying factory is our reality. Its antithesis and correct
response is hope and aspiration for the future. This dream occurs
in the realm of the aesthetic. Finally haunting alienation is
vanquished when the nameless and exclusively functional is transformed
into an aesthetic experience. The immediacy of black and white
can be one of the most informal means of communication; yet
its precedence and pedigree has witnessed our construction from
shopping lists, plumber advertisements, ransom notes and DaVinci
doodles.
Drawing is the open medium that alleviates the weight of the
subject. It is the embodying of optimism. It overwhelms and
evades the strict geometry of structure. The drawing is an escape
from regimented severity to livelier hope; ugly places in a
moment of beauty. The restricted palette and open brushwork
renders calculated construction with the passion of a gesture,
rigid structure revealed through light; linear perspective drawn
with organic paint. Reconciling these oppositional forces is
the energy of my drawing.
"Drawing -- the intermediate somewhat between a thought
and a thing." - Coleridge |