Neither Here Nor There: From the Flat File (2022 — )
I have a propensity for seriality. And as you will find in the other galleries on this website, I have sorted the artworks into series, some of which are grouped under a larger theme or period of exploration. Still, while working on a series, other individual works are also emerging along the perimeter. Some of these congeal into another series, while others remain outliers. Of these outliers, there are frequently works that appear ‘as if’ they might belong together, even forming groups. Still, for one reason or another, I have determined that, in some way, they lack my criteria of cohesiveness. These works are neither here nor there —not paintings, not drawings, not a series, and sometimes, not even existing as ‘one-offs.’
For me, the line between painting and drawing is hair-thin, if it exists at all. Sometimes I am not certain it does. Much of this uncertainty comes from my preference for using paper as the substrate for all my work. Add to that the mixing of wet and dry media to form the images, and one of the most common traditional ways to separate these two art forms becomes even blurrier. So how can these works, whose stacks grow more voluminous each year, filling the drawers of the flat file, be differentiated or catagorized?
The expression ‘neither here nor there’ implies an irrelevancy or unconnectedness to something greater, the subject at hand. Nevertheless, something that is neither here nor there has entered into the conversation as an aside. To me, asides are never irrelevant and always connect in some way to the conversation in which they are dropped. Whether inserted consciously or unintentionally on the part of the speaker, that which is ‘neither here nor there’ often directs the listener to a greater significance of the subject to be found in the here and now. Therefore, as listeners and viewers, I believe that which is brushed off as irrelevant-ramblings that are neither here nor there- deserves equal, if not more, of our attention as the main concerns to which they are purportedly unconnected.
I added this gallery to my website to offer a glimpse into the drawers of my flat file, a place that is neither here nor there, but always here and now in my studio and creative practice. The date is given as ‘2022 —’ because 2022 is the earliest date the first marks of the oldest work included here were made. Still, the completion dates of the works are sometimes indeterminate or approximate, having been laid aside or filed away and taken out again to be worked on again (and again) before being declared no longer in process. For now, like the drawer of a flat file, the artworks shown here will keep getting shuffled around as I add to and subtract from it.
