Artist Statement
photo credit: Alexis Rhone Fancher
I am a Los Angeles artist and poet. In my artwork, I’m interested in the geometrics of primary shapes, but within elaborate systems of my own construct.
My squares, cubes, text elements, and occasional crows, exist in the realm of multiples, in that territory where similar objects are different and different objects are similar. Working with paper elements, I set paper’s sensual nature — its fragility, strength, and response to moisture — against the rigidity and predictiveness of grids.
I introduce chance and chaos by drawing grids over painted surfaces or employing paper with common logic systems—sometimes ledger sheets salvaged from used accounting books or digital prints of typographical elements created from phrases of my poetry. This creates unpredictable, complex surface patterns. I also build with the shapes left after I cut into the prints of my typographical elements and paper cubes. My grid/square/cube-and-typography series contrasts the sensibility of common patterning systems with the color and improvisation of my surfaces. The grid lines and cube patterns of my process often remain visible in my finished pieces. My work explores similarity versus variety, a generic cube versus a unique cube, shape versus pattern, and the progressive relationship of squares to grids to cubes. Sometimes, there are crows.