James Pederson
When considering the omnipresence of screens, it is clear that
screen time is as much an integrated part of life as a form of
escape from it. We are required to maintain a split consciousness
between screens and physical space. My recent paintings feature
images of NFL broadcasts, which combine the unpredictability of
live television with the emotional investment of sports fanaticism,
perhaps the last stronghold of television as a real-time shared
event or collective experience.
In making the paintings, I constantly explore ways to break up the
continuity of the surface through moments of gratuitous paint
application or the attachment of cast objects to the surface. I see
this as a way to posit painting as a visual experience that stands
in stark contrast with screen displays. Whereas the slick surface
of a screen is designed to negate its own objecthood and preserve
the allure of the image, the relatively chunky surface of a painting
reveals the process of its own construction in the brushwork and
other forms of painterly facture.