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I am interested in what happens to traumatizing or confounding images when they are removed from their original place in cultural memory. My work investigates visual nuances that occur when these images are translated into a mass-media product, stripped of their inherent meaning, and re-presented in a new context, with an entirely disguised origin. By exploiting the faults of an image in commercial representation (by blurring or cropping, for example), I alienate the image from its sedimentation in historical consciousness. |
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“This immediate skepticism in regard to “how” exactly the image is made is intended to function as an obstruction, distancing the viewer from the ways these images are regularly received.”
R. Scott Whipkey Handshake (triptych), 2010-11. Pencil and marker on paper, glass and metal frames, each 12 x 17 inches each. Courtesy of the artist.
R. Scott Whipkey
I am interested in what happens to traumatizing or confounding images when they are removed from their original place in cultural memory. My work investigates visual nuances that occur when these images are translated into a mass-media product, stripped of their inherent meaning, and re-presented in a new context, with an entirely disguised origin. By exploiting the faults of an image in commercial representation (by blurring or cropping, for example), I alienate the image from its sedimentation in historical consciousness.
In my work, I question historic consciousness, ideology, and materialism. By limiting my medium to basic instruments used in everyday life (office pencils, ball-point pens, markers, correction fluid), my objective is to reestablish the viewer’s relationship with the medium being used. In a sense, I refer to the trompe l’oeil paintings of the European Renaissance, though mine is a trompe l’oeil of material rather than of form.
This immediate skepticism in regard to “how” exactly the image is made is intended to function as an obstruction, distancing the viewer from the ways these images are regularly received. While allowing an opportunity to express a more subversive effort, the political subtleties employed here explore relationships between history, trauma, and the representation of historically traumatic events. Ultimately, these images call into question the nature of what Deleuze has coined the image’s multidimensional corporality.
R. Scott Whipkey will be entering the MFA program of Virginia Commonwealth University this coming Fall.
