Jeremy Blake
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| Guccinam depicts dreamlike states
using a combination of architectural and abstract imagery. I refer to this work as
"time-based painting," and employ a painterly sensibility and process to create
images that transform over time. Guccinam isn’t meant to evoke any issue
directly related to the Vietnam War, nor is it meant to recall any actual place. My
noticing some relatively vague traces of both martial and colonial aesthetics in
contemporary design inspired the imagery in the piece. Examples range from the bamboo
handles on expensive Gucci purses and silverware, to the battle- ready appearance of sport
utility vehicles, to the camouflage gear sported by countless urban hipsters. I was also
interested in making a piece that employed some of the same brightly tinted smoke and
droning mechanical noise that are standard elements in Hollywood films that deal with the
war in Vietnam. I particularly admired the painterly use of tinted smoke in
"Apocalypse Now." Guccinam is best understood as an attempt to build a
hallucinatory location where a perceived strain in popular aesthetics is deliberately
intensified. |
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