Brian Bress
30 Jan - 21 Apr 2013
BRIAN BRESS
31 January - April 2013
Uncertainty on the part of both viewer and artist is a core element of my work. It contributes to the pathos—and the humor—driving the questioning of the artwork's overarching structure, revealing new meanings and new emotions. In recent years my practice has evolved from a formal education in painting to a performative-based video practice. Central to the evolution has been an interest in the studio as a physical space to arrange and create sets and tableaux charged with my own formalized aesthetic. And with these environments the desire has been to change the studio from a workshop into a theater space, so that the transformed space might itself inspire and drive the performance.
A recurring formal concern has been the inherent flatness of the video image. A quality of the medium that is, while derided by some filmmakers, a perfect partner in the conversation about the painting. My interest in the flatness of the video image has led to an exploration of the possibilities inherent with the new technology of flat screen monitors. Specifically, the potential of thin screens to be hung on the wall and to play looping videos occupying the space where one expects to find a painting. The handmade and meticulous nature of the costumes, masks and backgrounds featured in the videos lends a further material connection to painting. The relationship of the monitor pieces to the history of painting connects to many of the methods, styles and techniques of the medium. Like the Baroque 17th century trompe l'oeil paintings that served as windows to another world, sometimes with the subject even attempting to emerge from the framed image, the flat panel videos play with and explore similar
boundaries between image and reality.
Additionally the medium of video brings the element of motion into the equation of these historical modes of painting. The expected stillness of the picture is met with the uncanny tension created by seeing a moving image. Or conversely, if one is approaching the video monitor with the expectation of an abundance of motion, they are met with the silent and limited motion of the pieces. A contrast that undermines the connection to film and television and relative abundance of action these mediums offer. Still other connections to traditional paintings emerge in the work. Often the history of the painted portrait has been to serve as a document of a loved one. However in this work the sitters, all personal friends and loved ones, are subsumed by the costumes they wear. For example, in Infinite Man (Britt) 2012, the sitter is my partner, who is female. The tension between her actual identity as a female and that of the costume that depicts a repeating pattern of males creates a dichotomy between what is real and what is represented.
If the historical purpose of the portraiture genre has been to capture the essence of the sitter, my attention to the minute details of the sitter's outer accouterments suggest a belief that our context and our trappings in some sense define us. Beads and feathers, bulbous noses and eyes are all part of physiognomies I present in these works, revealing a cross-section of individuals and the narratives that unite them.
31 January - April 2013
Uncertainty on the part of both viewer and artist is a core element of my work. It contributes to the pathos—and the humor—driving the questioning of the artwork's overarching structure, revealing new meanings and new emotions. In recent years my practice has evolved from a formal education in painting to a performative-based video practice. Central to the evolution has been an interest in the studio as a physical space to arrange and create sets and tableaux charged with my own formalized aesthetic. And with these environments the desire has been to change the studio from a workshop into a theater space, so that the transformed space might itself inspire and drive the performance.
A recurring formal concern has been the inherent flatness of the video image. A quality of the medium that is, while derided by some filmmakers, a perfect partner in the conversation about the painting. My interest in the flatness of the video image has led to an exploration of the possibilities inherent with the new technology of flat screen monitors. Specifically, the potential of thin screens to be hung on the wall and to play looping videos occupying the space where one expects to find a painting. The handmade and meticulous nature of the costumes, masks and backgrounds featured in the videos lends a further material connection to painting. The relationship of the monitor pieces to the history of painting connects to many of the methods, styles and techniques of the medium. Like the Baroque 17th century trompe l'oeil paintings that served as windows to another world, sometimes with the subject even attempting to emerge from the framed image, the flat panel videos play with and explore similar
boundaries between image and reality.
Additionally the medium of video brings the element of motion into the equation of these historical modes of painting. The expected stillness of the picture is met with the uncanny tension created by seeing a moving image. Or conversely, if one is approaching the video monitor with the expectation of an abundance of motion, they are met with the silent and limited motion of the pieces. A contrast that undermines the connection to film and television and relative abundance of action these mediums offer. Still other connections to traditional paintings emerge in the work. Often the history of the painted portrait has been to serve as a document of a loved one. However in this work the sitters, all personal friends and loved ones, are subsumed by the costumes they wear. For example, in Infinite Man (Britt) 2012, the sitter is my partner, who is female. The tension between her actual identity as a female and that of the costume that depicts a repeating pattern of males creates a dichotomy between what is real and what is represented.
If the historical purpose of the portraiture genre has been to capture the essence of the sitter, my attention to the minute details of the sitter's outer accouterments suggest a belief that our context and our trappings in some sense define us. Beads and feathers, bulbous noses and eyes are all part of physiognomies I present in these works, revealing a cross-section of individuals and the narratives that unite them.