Work Narrative:
When I initially sat down at my desk to sketch my self portrait map I was immediately distracted by the web of unfinished art and bundles of treasured material that litter my desk. As I (thought that) I was procrastinating I began arranging scraps of patterned paper and packaging into aesthetically complete objects; playing with the balance of elements and tapping into a subconscious aesthetic code of placement.
I then realized that I was actively making my map in the space around me. Through my sculptural and visual work I was mapping my creative process and evolving aesthetic sensibility. The objects that I have been creating incorporate elements from previous art pieces or other personally significant objects that mark periods in my life, especially since I’ve moved to New York.
Each image collage or object has three mapping functions; firstly its existence serves as a physical manifestation of a particular moment in time, secondly it represents the state of my creative expression in that moment, and my interpretation of the specific ideas that fueled the creative process, thirdly it serves as a point on the larger map of the trajectory of my creative process.
This is not a static map.
It is continuously evolving and decaying, being destroyed and reformed into different objects which are amalgamations of past thoughts/moments/expressions. It is the nature of this map that it can never be finished or complete, it is a reflexive ‘organism’ that I will use to chart my reality in real time, accessing my own experience abstractly through images and objects in my space.
In this way my map speaks to the dynamic of reflexive and lived reality coexisting in a physical space. This is a recent cultural phenomenon largely created through the use of social media. Because I personally tend to be absent from social media it is interesting to view this (‘arcane’) mode of physical media as a form of personal lived social media. I.e. a creative instagram of myself for myself.
The map shown above is a further abstraction or reformation of my original map. The ‘true map’ (if there is such a thing) is on the walls of my room and is in the process of becoming a more cohesive visual piece.
The surface of my map is an image of my desk which holds all my materials and unfinished work and is also the place that this work is currently being assembled. This serves a strong representative function because the space in which I create work symbolizes potential creative work that will be added to my map in the future. The images on top serve as my sign system, they are images that I took of elements of my physical self portrait map. In this context as on my wall they work effectively to symbolize points in time and thought. My connecting lines serve to trace the creative influences each piece had on another.
As I continue on I may find that this ‘map of a map’ and my ‘original map’ will bleed into each other and possibly switch places, as it may become unclear which one is generating the other.
