Current Research - Constructs:

Light bounces off objects, is focused through our eyes, then flipped and translated in our brains. Visual psychologists describe this process of stimuli translation as a construct of the mind. When we look at a photograph, we do the same thing, but our view of information is limited. We don’t receive all the stimuli. What about the information outside of the edge of the photography? The negative space around the edge of an image is just as important as the image itself. The shapes, marks and forms within the photographic frame, the ones that fascinate me, want to be transformed. They want to extend beyond the edge. They know they are just the beginning of a narrative. The viewer will see and interpret the meaning based on what is provided to them. With more information than just what is inside the picture’s edge, the viewer can explore their imagination, creating their own constructs.

 

By focusing on Gestalt theories, the psychology of visual perception, and Russian Constructivist ideas of minimalism, I construct images using a camera, computer, printer, and plotter to draw and emboss the final compositions. I want the viewer to make connections between shape and form, positive and negative space, and the relationship between signifier and signified.

 

My Overall Art Practice:

Marks fascinate me. I call my practice Marktitious Imagery. It is a semiotic reassignment of marks found in a human-made landscape. Everyone leaves marks, both physically and emotionally. The ones that interest me the most are overlooked marks: a random strip of duct tape, a buffed-out graffiti tag or a crack in an unused public square. None of these marks would be there unless someone made the landscape for them to inhabit. I document these urban landscapes. I mix media and marks. I see stories in these marks. Sometimes I layer these marks. Sometimes I create the marks that go onto my photographs. Sometimes I emphasize negative space. Layers fascinate me. The build-up and juxtaposition of information creates texture, depth and interconnectivity. I like to confuse the semiotics of the marks. The signifier does not necessarily define the signified. Fact and fiction merge. It is mechanical and digital. It is balance. It is a transformation through documentation and manipulation, appropriation, deconstruction and reconstruction – sample, photograph, re-mix, layer, draw, sample, cut, emboss, and re-mix again.

 

It just depends on the marks.

 

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Artist website: lewisjcrawford.com