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Description
Back in July, thoughts on technnology that had been lingering in the back of my mind came together. I started sketches for this piece while thinkinig about how distracted my students are by their phones in class, how often I found myself scrolling with no real purpose, and generally a dwindling attention span that everyone is suffering. The goal was to critique all that and in a form that was subdued and compositionally dense. In that way it would hopefully resist the kind of quick 'consumption' that a lot of work suffers from online.

The paintings of Degas were major influences on the composition. I wanted to transfer what I had learned about color and light from the paintings I had been doing recently. I also wanted to continue to play with depictions of deep space. These are not aspects that translate to the collage process easily. Most collage artists I know work with fairly flat compositions. Traditional techniques for rendering form and space are not a problem them. In fact, historically, collage developed as a rejection of those exact techniques. The contradiction of modern and traditional feels appropriate for this work.

In early August, I had had most of this planned out, when my wife and I abruptly separated. Any prep work that I had done lingered in my sketchbook while I spent August finding a new place to live and getting settled again. Once I got my studio space set up, I took them out, and it had all taken on a different meaning. What was meant to be personal piece had suddenly become something extremely intimate. I could not tell you anything that actually changed from the sketches that would affect the interpretation beyond context, but its not the artwork I originally set out to make. I would like to say that creating this piece was cathartic, but it's too soon to feel that. It does manage to give shape to some of my feelings.

Description
Back in July, thoughts on technnology that had been lingering in the back of my mind came together. I started sketches for this piece while thinkinig about how distracted my students are by their phones in class, how often I found myself scrolling with no real purpose, and generally a dwindling attention span that everyone is suffering. The goal was to critique all that and in a form that was subdued and compositionally dense. In that way it would hopefully resist the kind of quick 'consumption' that a lot of work suffers from online.

The paintings of Degas were major influences on the composition. I wanted to transfer what I had learned about color and light from the paintings I had been doing recently. I also wanted to continue to play with depictions of deep space. These are not aspects that translate to the collage process easily. Most collage artists I know work with fairly flat compositions. Traditional techniques for rendering form and space are not a problem them. In fact, historically, collage developed as a rejection of those exact techniques. The contradiction of modern and traditional feels appropriate for this work.

In early August, I had had most of this planned out, when my wife and I abruptly separated. Any prep work that I had done lingered in my sketchbook while I spent August finding a new place to live and getting settled again. Once I got my studio space set up, I took them out, and it had all taken on a different meaning. What was meant to be personal piece had suddenly become something extremely intimate. I could not tell you anything that actually changed from the sketches that would affect the interpretation beyond context, but its not the artwork I originally set out to make. I would like to say that creating this piece was cathartic, but it's too soon to feel that. It does manage to give shape to some of my feelings.