SOME AESTHETIC NOTES
Gerald Cannon

2003_____________________________________________
I have for over a decade been involved in an effort to create a cohesive expression that resolved several problems I have found with generating artistic expression in the late 20th and early 21st century. As clearly as i can delineate the problems, they are these:

1999_____________________________________________
Much of my work utilizes found and "collaged" images taken from "low art" sources - stock photography, advertising clip-art, and children's books.   Text is inserted at times form within the computer program.   Images were chosen, simplified or elaborated,   removed them from their original context and juxtaposed with other images and text to recontextualize them.

Color is overtly used in an aggressive, garish fashion to emphasize a low advertising sensibility that is emblematic of a kind of presumption of simplicity in visual and textual language which is commonly used for manipulation of people for selfish gain.   The images have in common the presumption of control of one's environment (at a micro and macro level) that is often challenged by accidents and loss of security in these systems.  

Other issues addressed concern the conditions of our socialization.   For example, the attempts by others to protect us as children (leading to a presumption of control and security), or the suggestion that little boys should behave like little men (leading to repressed feelings and the pretentious courage of control).   There are also challenges to our understanding of language and signs around us.   Do words make the clear connections we think they do?   Do they "answer" questions or simply raise more?

In summary, these pieces concern the parallels between our individual perception and understanding of "order" and "control" and the same issues as the apply to larger spheres of existence.   We have a fragile hold on our own realities that is often fraudulent, though convincingly contrived in a tenuous agreement on common "language" perceptions in our early development.   This same assessment can be made on a macro level of our social institutions on a global scale.   This work is, hopefully, a tense probe into the little perceived - though vase - negative spaces the permeate our solid view of our world.