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Artist statement
The subject matter of my recent work deals with ideas of supermodernity, isolation, and non-places. Supermodernity is defined as a stage of society that reflects a deepening or intensification of modernity. Characteristics of this stage of society are attempts to understand, control, and manipulate every part of the human experience. The result of supemodernity shows up in how we construct our cities and spaces. More specifically it is embodied in our airports, supermarkets, new housing developments, subways, hotels, motor ways and many other non-places; spaces of transience that are not significant enough to be regarded as a place. These non-places have no particular identity; they do not fit the anthropological definition of place. Non-places are places that are not concerned with identity and are neither relational nor historical in the way places have been traditionally in the past. These spaces also help create and enforce the idea of the common man and often cater towards consumerism and corporatization. These spaces silently guide the masses.
Isolation is also an element in my work; I see isolation as a result of a constructed impersonal society in many of our cities. We make an effort not to speak to strangers, and pretend we didn’t see them as we pass through these non-places. There is a disappearance of small personal shops and a rapid incline of large generic super store corporations like Wal-Mart and Target all across the United States of America. Even in some of our own neighborhood are create in such a generic way that a person may occasionally pull into the neighbor’s driveway mistaking it as there own.
The paintings that I create often have a use of chiaroscuro and concepts within color theory like simultaneous contrast. Often in my paintings I am referencing and combining different modes of paintings from the past. I also choose to use this combination to enable me to make a visually arresting image. These visual qualities that I work with are influenced by visually striking cinematic images that are like director Brad Anderson’s The Machinist, or Zack Synder’s 300 and also the lighting in images from movies like Dr. Mark Romanck’s One Hour Photo; movies that have high tonal contrast, a crisp quality, and certain lighting to them which appeals to me for its ability to embody these ideas of socially stark, impersonal spaces.
Courtland Blade
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