Liz Lee: Observational Drawings – Hand
Artist(s):
Title:
- Observational Drawings - Hand
Exhibition:
Creation Year:
- 2004
Medium:
- Archival inks on watercolor paper
Size:
- 30 inches x 42 inches
Category:
Artist Statement:
There is a very poor connection between language and objective reality. Our most serious semantic problem occurs in the everyday act of naming or describing things. The word is not the thing, just as the map is not the territory. While there is never final resolution between the word and the thing, we are a species dependent on the abstractions of language, and in the end, the word often supersedes the image. This dualism creates a fragmentation that pervades both our individual bodies and our culture as a whole. Observational Drawings explores Western society’s reliance on objective definitions in language, while illustrating the folly of this dependence. The work addresses the use of identifying language and symbolic representation by portraying body parts, void of social gender-role identifications, literally transformed through the addition of abstract and obscure messages. Reliant on visual codes, but dependent on bodily functions, Observational Drawings is a comment on body language, for we live at the level of our language.
Technical Information:
The Observational Drawings series was created in Adobe Photoshop 7.0 and Corel Painter 8.0 on a Macintosh G4. The drawings were produced with scanned objects and anatomical drawings. The textures in the images were completely fabricated in the computer as a product of digitized surfaces. Hidden amongst the textural illusions are
noticeable references to digitized imagery intended to raise questions as to process and material condition. The juxtaposition of traditional materials and digitized imagery adds to the thematic questioning of the work: image versus word, objective versus subjective.
