E-mail from “HERE”

Christopher Cozier and I started an e-mail conversation in 2002. The following is a response to Christopher’s question, “Where are you in your head now?” This ongoing e-mail conversation between Christopher and myself is a valuable exchange between us as artists from the same space: one that has little to do with geography. I live and work in New York and Chris is based in Trinidad. Is our Caribbean-ness a state of being, a matter of vocabulary, of sensibility or of social concern? Our explorations as artists often transgress or transcend location, navigating a path around and beyond identity.

3/29/07

Chris,

I am a multi-media artist. I make art about ideas, but for me, in some way, it is “perceptual” art more than it is Conceptual Art. I am aware of the way people take things in, process, and live with—and in—situations. Why is our empathetic recognition selective? Why do we elect to disconnect and disassociate from each other when, I believe, this is an inherent human ability? What are the triggers? Sometimes they are obvious and blatant but sometimes they are subtle. I am working on concurrent projects—some directly inter-relate; others act as points of entry or departure for other projects.

When I started the Specimens from Local Ephemera series in 2002, people were unaware at the time of some of the language that I was using when I spoke about this project. Using the phrase ‘liminal terrain’, people asked me if that was a real word and if so, what did it mean? They did not grasp the context. I was referencing what I learnt about African cultural and visual production as opposed to the misnomer ‘African Art’ when I studied with Daniel Biebyk in graduate school at the University of South Florida. ‘Liminal’ is an anthropological term that is used to describe initiation ceremonies and practices. Many of these ceremonies

1. Specimen from Local Ephemera: Resistance with Black Ooze, 2005. Mixed media: graphite, acrylic paint, nail-polish and glitter on paper, 51″ × 58″.

are rites of passage in a tribal society that transforms a child into a full-fledged adult member of the group with ‘special’ knowledge and powers. In the process of this transformation, some groups believe that the initiate physically becomes an animal or the spirit of an ancestor, possibly both. Local Ephemera is a parallel world. A journey to and through this world and then back is a transformative experience, an initiation of sorts, to a more acute perception of HERE (our present/presence).

The Specimens from Local Ephemera series are field drawings. I used a technical drawing format in terms of the way that the work is presented. I am using the language of technical drawing (drafting) because it is visually familiar to many people. It is a way to draw the viewer into something that seems familiar but is actually something that is unfamiliar. I also make direct visual references to the mechanisms that one learns to configure and draw in drafting e.g., parts of machinery, screws, nuts and bolts, locking devices etc. Some of the names of these mechanisms become part of the visual narrative and, as a result, are incorporated into the titles.

2. Specimen from Local Ephemera: Vehicular Gyration, 2007. Mixed media: graphite, acrylic paint and nail-polish on paper, 38″ × 50″.

Painted collaged areas in the shape of paper and plastic birthday tiaras for little girls act as visual incursions into the drawn areas, creating the feeling of things being in constant flux in Local Ephemera. Even though the imagery is sparse, the layers interact creating a sense of dimensionality.

The Sensation Code is a map legend of sorts that consists of strips of nail-polish. The colors are seasonal and the exotic names that are given to the nail-polish colors help to implicate and indicate part of the narrative.

Besides using my initial cultural artifacts, the Angostura limbo drummer rum bottle (I have three that were all...