Artist’s Statement

THE WRITTEN WORD AS FORM OF INSPIRATION

One

what makes it

one

is it alone

the uniqueness

the metamorphosis of it

a chain

is the advanced

one

a joining of units

(no such thing as a separate unit)

everything has a connection

one

is  the

macro and micro

it is

+ and –

Ted W. Shado 04/10/74 revised 16/09/08

Artist’s Statement (2003-update)

STATEMENT: compiled 06/02/78 (from statements since 04/10/74) rewritten 26/08/15, 2/01/17

PROFESSION

I am a purveyor of visual paraphernalia (i.e. artist) NOTE: I have tried to refrain from the use of the words art and artist, because of the pejorative implications of these words in our society and they are ill suited to my understanding of the visual media. Posterity will be the judge of all artistic endeavors.

ON AIM

I am a visual recorder of all that I (and hopefully my species) have imagined. The P.V.P., must work with what he always had, but is losing rapidly, his imagination. I am trying to depict things you can’t understand but are enticed into. The difficulty level is high but very rewarding. I believe this to be the finest acceptance of role in life.

ON VISUAL PARAPHERNALIA

It, has no rules. It is like life. It is alive or dead. It is sincere or insincere. My visual paraphernalia is the purest record of my inner life, my imagination. I am intrigued by the image the mind creates without obvious representation of life but with the ability to create a world existing in space, hither to unforeseen.

ON MY ARTWORK

My work has taken me to a profound form of communication in the form of subconscious directness toward reality. Biomorphic and geometric forms allow a non-recognizable reality to arise while colors are used to map out a definite zone of spatial occupation. Feelings translated through the digital pixel its speed and simplicity has humbled my insights and created profound  images much more significant than any paint or graphite ever could. Training and experience has directed my work in a spontaneous manner, conspicuously similar to dance or free form jazz music or singing. I find singing Opera to be helpful as a stabilizer for the speed of digital image creation.  In order to describe the imagery that I have obtained over the last 46 years in my work I would need  more time, space and metaphors  than this statement allows. I would be pleased to discuss my artwork further at a convenient time.

ON ABSTRACTION

Described as the abstract or symbolic. My work embodies itself and its ideas. I have chosen the abstract image for two reasons:

-With the invention of the camera and all it derivations, hand reproduction of reality alone is a futile waste of time.

-The imagination is the real mother lode to be tapped ad infinitum.

ON PHOTOGRAPHY (revised 29/10/08, 2/01/17)

Capturing realism is best done with a film/digital camera. Since its invention in the nineteenth century, hand rendering of reality is redundant and a waste of time (for me). I am interested in trying to convey with my photographs a time that is long gone; a time where machines, electricity or wires do not exist. The horse is the definition of power and man and women were tied to the earth. I find the cityscape with it’s unique forms and shapes a simple way to capture a human representational image full of importance and symmetry; even sentimentality. The moment is frozen in time and nostalgia begins.

ON SINCERITY

My sincerity is subsumed in my work, it needs no other abstract entity to describe it (such as the written word).

ON THEORIES

These ideas are needed to justify placing a value on works of art, in spite of a lack of communication with the art object. Images that are deeply experienced do not need explanation or theories. It is much more important that the viewer interprets an idea that is relevant to their intellectual needs.

ON STYLE

The style of my work shall be determined by posterity after I am deceased.

ON DIFFICULTIES IN VISUAL COMMUNICATION ( revised 2/01/17)

There have been difficulties in conveyance of meaning of abstract images because; we have become prisoners of 1984 (in the Orwellian sense). There pervades a “Don’t even think about it attitude, (there’s no time) fake it.” We are Prisoners of Technology, and the television, and we have lost control of our imagination. Man/Woman’s greatest weakness, vanity is played upon lustfully.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN

We are so egotistical we won’t accept anything we can’t identify with. The visual recipient may not wish to be drawn in to the intellectual banter of an image that is non-descriptive.

WHAT DID IT    (revised 2,1,2017)

It is my sincere feeling and belief that Television and electronic media de-intensifies the attention span. It is an escape mechanism, in that, it forces one’s eyes, ears, and the conceptual mechanism, to perceive an altered, deified awareness of reality. The humanity is taken away, and one experiences, a false sense of control, and one is ultimately robbed of one’s most precious gift, one’s imagination.

LAST LINES

Visual art is more advanced than the other arts because it has developed exponentially, whereas the other arts have had a linear development. We spend substantially more time reproducing than producing, the original image.

WHAT MOTIVATES AN (P.V.P)  ARTIST

I neither enjoy nor am satisfied with work completed. I only enjoy work I am doing. The act of doing visual images with the possibility of creating an image never before seen is enticing and joyful. Capturing a split second of an image that a trained and experienced visual purveyor may witness with the imagination is a sincere and truthful reason for existence. One can only caricature life in its infinite majesty.

Enjoy