Thursday, September 15, 2011

Powhida on the 'production of art and a search for meaning'

I've always found William Powhida's work & words to be in line with my own aesthetic leanings: a craving for synthesis between image & text, a desire for expression of that nexus between the visual & the verbal, the use of line to delineate, outline, hint at or come to some conclusion ... Always with his unique blend of irony mixed with a healthy dose of acerbic wit, eloquently, he writes:
"The artists in Dunkle Wolke are people I consider to be friends, or at least people I've shared a drink and a discussion about art with. They are artists who also have some experience with darkness in all its forms from the purely formal to the emotional weight of loneliness. They talk about darkness as a condition of their environment, history, politics, a color, or personal relationships that often takes on the form of what Bjoern Meyer-Ebrecht describes as an 'ominous shape'. For me, the ominous shape is an expression of anxiety about the production of art and a search for meaning in an often chaotic world where historical narratives break down into reality without the authority of history and moral intention. Through the process of putting reality into a narrative, we attempt give it meaning making it a contentious site to be written and unwritten giving rise to a tension between form and language.
...

All of the works are equivocal representations of time, distance, and space with unfixed beginnings and end points that remain ominously close to darkness and the ambiguity of vision. They question our certainty about history, but they don’t give in to chaos. They are rescued by beauty, maybe even love without sentimentality, a love for process and possibility that art can provide some meaning and relief to the anxiety of living. Even I have to believe that sometimes."
- William Powhida


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