"Despite all of his rascal talk and cheeky affinity for art historical quotes that disavow the use of talking (or writing) about painting, I've been asked, and I am here, to discuss Jason Deary's work, his process-based production, exploration of visual vocabularies, and the roles of the archaeological and linguistic in New Artifacts.
In thinking about these works, I'm compelled to begin by considering the ontology of "artifacts." They are, on one hand, and perhaps most commonly, thought of through the lens of archaeology, as a thing or object made or given shape by human workmanship and intention--a useful tool, a work of art. But artifacts can also be more abstract: they can be languages or words, as these, particularly in their visual forms, have been shaped by humanity for a certain purpose--to facilitate communication. This brings me to think of New Artifacts in two ways: in terms of the act of mining or excavating, and in terms of the bridging of languages.
The work in this exhibition is the cumulative result of a prolific, experimental, and obsessive process-based studio practice. Using materials such as Mylar, vellum, and vinyl as supports, Deary generates a seemingly-endless series of textures, patterns, and gradients. The outcome of these actions is incidental and spontaneous; intention only exists insofar as it concerns material exploration. From these gestures recorded in paint, shapes, figures, and fields are cut out or extracted, categorized, and finally archived. Vast collections of visual artifacts are amassed, then mined, then interpreted and arranged through an intuitive trial-and-error process of layering and collaging.
The resulting works oscillate between representation and abstraction. They are suggestive of the archival, historical images, 35mm slides, Xeroxes, bad faxes, halftone newspaper prints, or grainy black-and-white photographs reproduced in dusty art history or anthropology textbooks. They also reference a history of painted languages or typologies, movements, and aesthetics, such as Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism, Op Art, classical arrangements or still-life, portraiture, and so on.
Throughout this process, Deary inhabits a series of hybrid roles: artist-as-archaeologist, -archivist, -collector, -producer, -preparator, -historian, and -curator. Through these enactments, as well as through the formal suggestions of exhibition space structures (such as shelves, plinths, grates and grids commonly found in collections vaults, architectural forms, imagined galleries, etc.), the works in New Artifacts reference the collaborative ecologies that operate behind-the-scenes; the beautiful but unglamourous visual language of our vocations as artists, curators, historians, preparators, collections managers, etc.; and the vernacular grammar and syntax of exhibition-making.
This is, I suspect, what this work is driving at: these are paintings that are at once about painting-as-object and painting-as-action or verb, but also about painting as a space to articulate visual vocabularies that can describe and bridge the relationships among contemporary art ecologies; paintings as new artifacts of a shared language."
- Unearthing New Artifacts, Shauna Thompson, 2014
In thinking about these works, I'm compelled to begin by considering the ontology of "artifacts." They are, on one hand, and perhaps most commonly, thought of through the lens of archaeology, as a thing or object made or given shape by human workmanship and intention--a useful tool, a work of art. But artifacts can also be more abstract: they can be languages or words, as these, particularly in their visual forms, have been shaped by humanity for a certain purpose--to facilitate communication. This brings me to think of New Artifacts in two ways: in terms of the act of mining or excavating, and in terms of the bridging of languages.
The work in this exhibition is the cumulative result of a prolific, experimental, and obsessive process-based studio practice. Using materials such as Mylar, vellum, and vinyl as supports, Deary generates a seemingly-endless series of textures, patterns, and gradients. The outcome of these actions is incidental and spontaneous; intention only exists insofar as it concerns material exploration. From these gestures recorded in paint, shapes, figures, and fields are cut out or extracted, categorized, and finally archived. Vast collections of visual artifacts are amassed, then mined, then interpreted and arranged through an intuitive trial-and-error process of layering and collaging.
The resulting works oscillate between representation and abstraction. They are suggestive of the archival, historical images, 35mm slides, Xeroxes, bad faxes, halftone newspaper prints, or grainy black-and-white photographs reproduced in dusty art history or anthropology textbooks. They also reference a history of painted languages or typologies, movements, and aesthetics, such as Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism, Op Art, classical arrangements or still-life, portraiture, and so on.
Throughout this process, Deary inhabits a series of hybrid roles: artist-as-archaeologist, -archivist, -collector, -producer, -preparator, -historian, and -curator. Through these enactments, as well as through the formal suggestions of exhibition space structures (such as shelves, plinths, grates and grids commonly found in collections vaults, architectural forms, imagined galleries, etc.), the works in New Artifacts reference the collaborative ecologies that operate behind-the-scenes; the beautiful but unglamourous visual language of our vocations as artists, curators, historians, preparators, collections managers, etc.; and the vernacular grammar and syntax of exhibition-making.
This is, I suspect, what this work is driving at: these are paintings that are at once about painting-as-object and painting-as-action or verb, but also about painting as a space to articulate visual vocabularies that can describe and bridge the relationships among contemporary art ecologies; paintings as new artifacts of a shared language."
- Unearthing New Artifacts, Shauna Thompson, 2014
