I used to have a really fancy, academic statement but I now think it was a little silly. I have reasons for painting what I paint and I used to say that I was trying to 'reveal the relationship between man and his made environment and the degradation of those environments over time.' I'm still trying to do that but I want to try to explain myself without using the words 'juxtapose' and 'explore'. I swear I reread an old statement of mind and I used the word 'metanarrative'.
I am fascinated by run down buildings and hand painted signs and old people sitting on turned over buckets and power lines that droop low across the sky in neighborhoods that civic responsibility has forgotten about. My own life experience has been fairly suburban and I seem to be drawn to these areas because they represent a kind of cultural past that feel removed from and want to understand. If the South has a running narrative I'd like to try to record the aspects that are interesting to me- peeling paint and booze and humidity
I fracture my work with strong linear elements that are drawn directly from the lines of perspective used in my initial sketch on the canvas. The lines of the buildings themselves then determine the direction of the piece. The more man made elements the denser the line work.
I like this method because it creates a kind of system for me when I work through the painting- much of the composition is decided for me at this early stage so I loose a little of the control and authorship. I'm not really a part of the lives that I'm depicting and this process takes me out of the narrative, keeping me separate from the subject matter. I'm not trying to create a feeling of nostalgia or clinging to some imagined charm of poverty and/or rural decay.
I originally started this fracturing because I loved the way power lines dissect our surroundings. Power lines prove our dependence on all of our modern junk and their physical condition can reveal the social strata of those around them. Older, often neglected neighborhoods and have low slung lines that end in houses in messy tangles. Upscale areas keep their lines high and tidy and sometimes erase the lines altogether- putting the eyesores underground.
Lines criss cross our lives and we don't really notice them. I wanted to exaggerate this idea and show how every thing man has created and surrounds himself with influences his life and the lives of others. You may not get that when you look at my work but that's actually what I have in mind when I paint them.
BIO:
Colleen Terrell Comer is originally from Mobile, Alabama and received her BFA from Auburn University. She has lived and shown her work across the South East and in New York, NY. Her work has been commissioned for personal and corporate collections including the Contemporary Carolina Collection; a major retrospective of living South Carolina artists.
I am fascinated by run down buildings and hand painted signs and old people sitting on turned over buckets and power lines that droop low across the sky in neighborhoods that civic responsibility has forgotten about. My own life experience has been fairly suburban and I seem to be drawn to these areas because they represent a kind of cultural past that feel removed from and want to understand. If the South has a running narrative I'd like to try to record the aspects that are interesting to me- peeling paint and booze and humidity
I fracture my work with strong linear elements that are drawn directly from the lines of perspective used in my initial sketch on the canvas. The lines of the buildings themselves then determine the direction of the piece. The more man made elements the denser the line work.
I like this method because it creates a kind of system for me when I work through the painting- much of the composition is decided for me at this early stage so I loose a little of the control and authorship. I'm not really a part of the lives that I'm depicting and this process takes me out of the narrative, keeping me separate from the subject matter. I'm not trying to create a feeling of nostalgia or clinging to some imagined charm of poverty and/or rural decay.
I originally started this fracturing because I loved the way power lines dissect our surroundings. Power lines prove our dependence on all of our modern junk and their physical condition can reveal the social strata of those around them. Older, often neglected neighborhoods and have low slung lines that end in houses in messy tangles. Upscale areas keep their lines high and tidy and sometimes erase the lines altogether- putting the eyesores underground.
Lines criss cross our lives and we don't really notice them. I wanted to exaggerate this idea and show how every thing man has created and surrounds himself with influences his life and the lives of others. You may not get that when you look at my work but that's actually what I have in mind when I paint them.
BIO:
Colleen Terrell Comer is originally from Mobile, Alabama and received her BFA from Auburn University. She has lived and shown her work across the South East and in New York, NY. Her work has been commissioned for personal and corporate collections including the Contemporary Carolina Collection; a major retrospective of living South Carolina artists.
