Tom Pazderka

Region: MFA Annual

Contemporary Western culture is wrought with intricacies and inconsistencies revolving around its delicate historical mythology, ideology, and power structure. The overlooked, unspoken, infamous, and forgotten are all an integral part of that history, yet seldom acknowledged as such. My work confronts culture and its idiosyncrasies with a skeptical eye toward popularly accepted dogma and to the facts of the extreme fringe, while never remaining completely neutral. I am most interested in that which most would rather leave alone, not because of a morbid fascination, but because history of any kind has two dual readings—the profane and the secret, the exoteric and the esoteric. Both dualities run the wheels of history with equal force. These kinds of opposites are a common thread throughout my work. I show the thin line that runs between them, and how easily one emerges as a mirror image of the other.

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July 29, 2015