The Artists "Review" Artists Project was launched on June 30, 2008. Below is a "review" of Imants Ozers' work, Deluxe, written by Mary Klein. Imants provided the second jpeg, an image of Embrace, as well as a brief response to Mary's "review."
Imants currently resides in Chicago, IL, and Mary lives in Twin Cities, MN.
If you would like to participate in this project, please email me at jtkirkland [at] gmail [dot] com.
Deluxe
Digital still derived from video frame
Usually printed at 5" x 7"
2007
The "Review"
The medium of Deluxe, “digital still derived from a video frame,” was the first thing that struck me about this piece. It conjured up a series of one’s and zero’s whipping past and then suddenly, and by conscious-artistic intervention, brought to a halt. It was at this point when the momentum felt like it had been transferred to the viewer. The visual and textual stimuli had been launched to touch off circuits of memory and emotion.
Deluxe, from the French, in luxury, is a word rarely used in conversation. In this piece, however, it’s used twice – as the title and as text in the image. Suggestive of luxury, nostalgia (with the Vagabond font,) and crass consumerism (it’s a word most often used in marketing hype) – deluxe seems to take on the pejorative.
The symmetry of the under lying image is nearly perfect with the forms near the “center-fold” appearing somewhat human. It brought to my mind da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. It didn’t take me long, however, to give up searching for a real person. The severe symmetry, artificiality of color handling and absence of definite human features forced me to confront the possibility of a machine in human form – an android, perhaps.
Da Vinci sought to relate humankind to nature. He believed that the laws of the universe and the inner-workings of the human body were analogous. In Deluxe, perhaps the artist is asking us to relate the world of consumerism to the loss of our humanity. If the world of marketing and hype is our cosmos, will we eventually resemble its microcosm – will we tend to the artificial – to the manmade?
By Mary Klein
Embrace
Digital still derived from video frame
Usually printed at 5" x 7"
2007
The Response
Mary’s review is both eloquent and inspirational. Her keen skills of observation and accurate read on the piece are a pleasure to behold.
Deluxe was derived from video of a lady opening and passing through a glass doorway as seen through several panes of glass inside a diner.
I like the power and the play achieved through the use of words, especially when removed from the usual full sentence context.
Much of my focus is on the interplay of organic and inorganic elements and the relationships of nature-machine, nature-man, and man-machine.
By Imants Ozers
Previous "Reviews":
Pam Farrell on Ken Weathersby
Paula McCullough on Aric Calfee
Lee Gainer on Leigh Waldron-Taylor
Aric Calfee on Paula McCullough
Matthew Ballou on Heather Levy
Giovanni Garcia-Fenech on TJ Norris
TJ Norris on Giovanni Garcia-Fenech
Susan Tolbert on Mary Klein
Heather Levy on Gail Vollrath
Sharon Butler on Matthew Ballou
Mark L. Power on Steven Alexander
Steven Alexander on Mark L. Power
Molly Norris on M. Trigos
Ken Weathersby on Joseph Barbaccia
Sondra Arkin on Susan Tolbert
John M. Adams on Sharon Butler
Michael Paul Oman-Reagan on Brent Hallard
Daniel Mafe on Pam Farrell
Joanna Knox on John M. Adams
John Lucien Grillo on Joanna Knox
Brent Hallard on Lisa Klow
Joseph Barbaccia on John Lucien Grillo
M. Trigos on Michael Paul Oman-Reagan
Comments