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Murmuration, $3,000

Hot roll steel, glass mirrors, chain link and hardware

6’x6’x6x

2023

Everyone is competing for our visual attention. There are so many ways to attain it now. It is necessary to visually rest on something simple yet captivating. For the visual artist, this is one of many challenges.

Another challenge for the artist has to do with purpose. A question that artists (one that the artist Robert Irwin is known for) often find themselves asking: “Why art?” If the result(s) the artist hopes to achieve by creating art can be more easily accomplished through the spoken or written word or some other vehicle, why then would he or she take on the process of art-making? This question of, “Why art?” suddenly poses a new challenge to the artist—an orthopoesis–to “create” something that transcends words. If this challenge of art-making is somehow met, the art-viewer encounters a unique “art experience” that becomes his or hers alone. A circle between the artist, art object and the viewer is completed. Samuel Johnson, the author, describes a similar sentiment with respect to the written word in the quote below:

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”

The same can be said of the art object and the viewer. The experience between the art and the viewer can be said to complete the work. I would argue that it is, in fact, the main purpose for creating the work.

Art can be characterized as having an ineffable nature. Sometimes, we are forced to resort to apophasis or describing what it is not rather than what it is because of its elusiveness when trying to define it. I believe the same is true of the art experience if it is successful.

I hope viewers of my work will take time with it. Too often we perceive by looking only to file it in our memory bank. We sometimes take pictures of important moments choosing to concern ourselves with capturing the memory in order to reflect on it at “some later time” rather than enjoy the experience itself. Rarely do we take the time to maximize the experience “in the moment”.

Much of my work is meant to be seen in person. They are not seen well in photos.

Art on the Rim is brought to you by: parkeraleman

A special THANK YOU to the El Paso Community Foundation, and the Border Art Residency. For more information: contactparkeraleman@gmail.com