new orleans via satellite

new orleans via satellite

Sunday, October 27, 2013

REVISED artist statement

"Photographic evidence is universally accepted as empirical proof in the face of doubt. A painting, on the other hand, is by nature a fiction. While a camera has many uses, there is no practical use for a painting. As to truth, a painting can be an impression or an expression. It can be abstraction or representation. Painting has always been a form of lying, since Zeuxis and Parrhasius. To paint a photograph is the most unreasonable act in the world, but the precedent has been set with Photorealism. With every painting, I try to retain the honesty of the image without depending on realism, or exaggerating to the point of surrealism. The goal is to stimulate skepticism about visual evidence of factual events; creating a shaky and uncertain relationship between viewer and painting. Doubting the information and not the eyes effects a cognitive journey, or a Digression, with no judgment and no point. A fractal cognition where there is no core to its infinite sphere. My paintings are a deviation from reason and aesthetics - any actualization from which is entirely incidental." (c) Richard Legendre 2013