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→Poetics / Aesthetic Reference
My key aesthetic references in this piece are Andy Warhol’s ''Disaster Paintings'', and Jim Campbell’s ''Ambiguous Icons''. Though separated by time and medium, the share an air of pathos. Warhol’s Disaster Paintings show both a fascination with tragedy and equanimity in the face of it. Prompted by disasters in the news stories of the day (such as the fatal-food poisoning event in Tuna Fish Disaster) his screen-print paintings reproduce imagery of those events ad nauseum.
Jim Campbell’s ''Ambiguous Icon'' series, particularly ''Ambiguous Icon #5, Running / Falling'', shifts focus from the staccato puncture of unexpected calamity to the inherent pathos of the human condition. Babies have to “learn to crawl before you walk”. “You need to walk before you run.” Before you fall. Campbells low-res animations are redolent in their associations but unwilling to give up provide specific detail of what exactly they show.
These two bodies of work share traits as kinds of second-hand representations. Both are screen-printing techniques, images extracted from their normal context and rendered through exotic means.