From Now On We Will Speak In Code
Currently my thinking and work has been driven by themes of fear, confusion, uncertainty and conspiracy. For the first time in my life people around me are becoming more and more fearful of American institutions and the actions of our new President. When thinking about these issues on a day-to-day basis I began to consider how I could filter these thoughts into my work. I am struck by the conspiracies and talk of America possibly entering an age of Authoritarianism. Hearing significant figures in my life speak about this possibility made me question what that would be like for me as an artist. I began asking myself how I would react and work in a country where I could be killed for sending a letter to a family member because my views are different than my governments’. However, as scary as the situation sometimes seems, the daily events also regularly verge on the ridiculous, which has introduced an element of humor to the work. I put myself in the mindset of someone in a rebellion or revolution and through drafting and sending postcards to friends and family with hidden “codes” speaking about “National Security” and “Fear of our new leader” I began exploring this idea in a physical form.
Quickly these postcards took a larger more formal format with woodblock prints, chine-collé and letterpress. The collaged elements are bright and organically shaped; they push and pull the large hand carved woodblock text against tight even printed lead-type. My intention was to create codes that are supposed to be cracked, insinuating that the authorities supposedly monitoring the letters are easily fooled. As I continued thinking about how the codes could be written I thought of hiding the text behind the collaged elements and adding simple mechanisms that reveal the messages when manipulated. Through the design and making of these mechanisms I became infatuated with the materials I was using and the surprise of the reveal. The mechanisms became integral to the compositions I was creating. The moving pieces change the composition and become a part of the puzzle, thus the instructions are imbedded in the compositions.
The two most recent iterations of this body of work began as a stack of letterpress prints each the same, to which I then added different moving components. Some of these components acted as locking mechanisms and others were more straightforward, however each of them revealed the same message, “HELP.” The form of the prints was a great start for me but I had a strong desire to move back into a format that felt more like the original postcards. I designed a book with a single page that lies flat when opened which to me had the feeling of something secretive and correspondence capable. The book format also encourages the viewer to handle the object in a way that is more inherent to the medium than a print on a wall. Just as an oppressed citizen under an authoritative state must take a risk with resistance, the viewer must risk touching and trusting the delicate paper and board mechanisms in order to find the message. The book I created is in an edition of ten and contains collage, woodblock relief prints, letterpress and mechanical components. I am continuing to explore the idea of fear and uncertainty, which has enveloped much of America in the past year.