FUN TATTOOING

capstone, 2017

"There's the motion of entering language and exiting language, entering meaning and exiting meaning, and having words stand for things but also having them be empty of specific meanings."

Thesis for my Bachelor of Fine Arts. This piece focused on the structure of language and its control over the mind. I worked in a journal each day as a way to deal with certain internal questions regarding my identity as an artist that I could not express outwardly. The word "and" had an unconscious control over me. "And what?" was something I had thought when creating work, but also through listening to others around me. Mel Bochner mentioned that we often ascribe certain characters and feelings to words that wouldn’t hold any emotion otherwise. This word “and” can be used so many different ways, but always alludes to continuation. By reworking the text in different contexts and sentence structures, it allowed me to detach myself from their weight and transform them into something nonsensical and open to interpretation.

Installation process film below.

And, 2017
8.9cm x 13.9cm
ink on glass