Artist Statement:
Growing up, I have always had an interest in the arts and the creative process that goes into creating them. I absolutely love how art can capture our ideas, emotions, reality, and fantasy and put them on display for others to connect to; to get lost in. Having the chance to experience works of art helps develop our understanding of each other, our environment, and life itself. Within my art, I hope to convey my ideas and philosophies on how I view life and the world in which I live.
“Observations of the Not So Mundane” is a series of work that focuses on aspects in our life that many people would percieve as mundane, uninteresting, and dull. The details and importance of these aspects are often overlooked. The title of this series comes from a project I did for the class “Literature and the Environment” during my time at Murray State University. For that project, I wrote poetry, took a few photos, and wrote a small research paper. That project of course focused more on the environment and our relationship to it, something also often overlooked by people.
This current approach to the mundane instead focuses on things we each do in our daily lives, such as work, driving, and just walking to and from different places. Each of these are things we do constantly and almost without thought. Often, work is repetitive and many of us are in a work environment that does not allow us to express or be ourselves. However, there is something valuable to still be found in such work, aside from a paycheck. And travel, whether in cars, on foot, or on another vehicle, is something we all do constantly. Sometimes this travel moves us long distances, connecting us with a variety of people. Other times, this travel is fast paced, how ever short the distance. And within that travel, we often miss that which is going on around us.
This current approach to the mundane instead focuses on things we each do in our daily lives, such as work, driving, and just walking to and from different places. Each of these are things we do constantly and almost without thought. Often, work is repetitive and many of us are in a work environment that does not allow us to express or be ourselves. However, there is something valuable to still be found in such work, aside from a paycheck. And travel, whether in cars, on foot, or on another vehicle, is something we all do constantly. Sometimes this travel moves us long distances, connecting us with a variety of people. Other times, this travel is fast paced, how ever short the distance. And within that travel, we often miss that which is going on around us.
I hope that my series helps others see the many wonders that exist in even the most mundane aspects of our lives. We should never go a day in our lives without experiencing some sort of wonder, having our senses, minds, and hearts captured by the amazing things that exist within our world.
This is my series of Life, for my project Observations of the Not So Mundane. The project approaches different aspects of our life and finds value in what is often seen as mundane and dull. I used a comic style to create a narrative between each set. The images are printed separately and then displayed in such a way to create a sort of comic strip or page.
This series emphasized the amount of variety and wonder to be found in life, with the abundance of plants and other living creatures often overlooked. The layout in print will be the text and bees sitting on top of the flowers on the left side, with the text at the top.
