Featured Artist
Laura Hamje
in
"Fish Eye Lens"
Fish Eye Lens
By
Pete Milosovich ©2011
Perched atop the colonnade saints topple at the hands of the next inevitable revolution. The postmodernist proclaims, Principles of Pastiche! Color, line, content and form progress through a rigorous interplay of ideas and thoughts inevitably bound to experience, yet distorted by the uncanny power of imagination. A congealed bloody mess lapped up and savored by the fiery Dadaist, forever severing the ties between the bourgeois and the proletariat. While throughout this gay apparel the chorus of digital pundits proclaims reproduce, giving a bloodless birth to artifice the magnificent god of perfection. Contorted and perplexed the Modernist resists and refrains, but never maintains too much of a political distance. Such complete detachment would purge us of the competing politics of ants streaming to the voice of collective indifference. Thoughts of revolt shared by the mass of deniers that swell the piazza, waving slogans of protest against what they fail to recognize, the eternal relevance of culture…
Contemplating fantastic realms of the unseen where new theories manifest, and resistant voices linger in the shadows. Eruptions demanding the violent execution of past movements never fully materialize in a ‘critical’ world that succeeds at transforming cultural theory to meet the needs of social change. Humanities inner child possesses a ravenous hunger that can scarcely become quelled; even under the rigorous demands of dogma the child finds clever means to resist the onslaught of intellectual tyranny.
The compelling abstractions of Ms. Hamje revel in the deep and dark tonalities of her expressive design. Clearly, this ‘vast’ panel at the heart of the temple propels our thoughts into various avenues if we allow ourselves to truly ponder the inevitable, mirrors in our mind reflecting back at us, appearing as distortions of whatever we desire; perhaps crazed and the maniacal if we subject ourselves to the rigorous and systematic doctrines of ‘civilized’ dogma, rather than embracing the diabolical irrationalities of human existence. Where the intrinsic value of what is becomes lost in a maze of hierarchal entrapments of the civilized mind, but despair not dear friends and readers. When the manifestation of ideas leads to a collage of vibrant experiences unbound by any scientific law, unbound by the institutions of villainous dogma that tell us what to think, that tell us to value our own ego among all else, and to realize in our self righteous zeal that we can do no wrong. Yet such a notion couldn’t be further from the fruits of our desperate existence. All we have to do is pluck them when they appear in season…in the vibrant gardens of our individual thoughts.
Simply existing is never quite good enough. Waiting and waning for the mysterious veil of golden lining to ensnare us and transport us to the eternal sunshine of forever contradicts the intrinsic value that lies at the heart of the matter. Uprooted from ‘ourselves’ we become the villainous doppelganger of our own demise, when and where the ‘ideal’ self pulls us apart, limb from bloody limb transforming us into perfection, the pristine and polished shell of the perfect man and woman pretending to have a soul, constructed, automatic, callous and cruel…
This desire for intellectual contact Ms. Hamje celebrates exposes the complex relationship of light and shadow, intertwining us with the impact of light as it rests on the body like a patchwork of truth controlled by unwavering brush strokes, yet never far behind the expressive avenues of her imagination. Propelling us into a world that eradicates subjectivity in favor of stimulating the spark that drives imagination onward; yearning, growing, experiencing as much as possible until our dying breath closes the doorway of sentience can lead to desperation. Such work compels us to search and articulate. This inevitable intersection with life reminds us that the magnificent realm we dabble in becomes completely dependent on the force that propels us through the darkness.
Extinguish life and what truly remains?
Soothsayers rest with steady elbows on ancient tombs feigning the truth over and over again, as if time, distance, space, and the culture of another period has little if anything to do with it. They proclaim ‘universal’ truth as something never subject to debate, while it remains as impervious as the sun. Yet in an instance where the ‘imprint’ reigns eternal Ms. Hamje eradicates the appeal of rigid structures in favor of sharp strokes of blue amidst the gray edifice looming before us. Perhaps Ms. Hamje remains at her most compelling when she reveals forms that allude to anything, but certainty. Layers of patchwork that characterize the nude as a vital exploration in form just as much as the light and shadow her work sheds like a subdued patchwork of expressive mystery.
Layer upon layer culture heaps on so many manifestations of ideology; cultural identity, gender identity, religious identity- poking and prodding our sensibilities with cattle prods designed to eradicate free thinking in favor of a noble truth at the end of the rainbow, yet once the colors bleed away the shimmering veil of deceit remains. People who express such concerns lead us by the nose to an untimely death where nothing is in fact challenged. In such a world the puny existence of our own lives could scarcely become contemplated. We must struggle and force ourselves through the maelstrom of societal shackles imposed upon us, but as soon as we discover the key to unlocking a particularly crafty lock of nasty design, another one latches on to our unsuspecting psyche. Peering desperately through a fish eye lens, pushing at the boundaries- contracting, so many struggle to avoid the hook dangling before gapping curiosity…
Simply existing is never quite good enough. Waiting and waning for the mysterious veil of golden lining to ensnare us and transport us to the eternal sunshine of forever contradicts the intrinsic value that lies at the heart of the matter. Uprooted from ‘ourselves’ we become the villainous doppelganger of our own demise, when and where the ‘ideal’ self pulls us apart, limb from bloody limb transforming us into perfection, the pristine and polished shell of the perfect man and woman pretending to have a soul, constructed, automatic, callous and cruel…
This desire for intellectual contact Ms. Hamje celebrates exposes the complex relationship of light and shadow, intertwining us with the impact of light as it rests on the body like a patchwork of truth controlled by unwavering brush strokes, yet never far behind the expressive avenues of her imagination. Propelling us into a world that eradicates subjectivity in favor of stimulating the spark that drives imagination onward; yearning, growing, experiencing as much as possible until our dying breath closes the doorway of sentience can lead to desperation. Such work compels us to search and articulate. This inevitable intersection with life reminds us that the magnificent realm we dabble in becomes completely dependent on the force that propels us through the darkness.
Extinguish life and what truly remains?
Soothsayers rest with steady elbows on ancient tombs feigning the truth over and over again, as if time, distance, space, and the culture of another period has little if anything to do with it. They proclaim ‘universal’ truth as something never subject to debate, while it remains as impervious as the sun. Yet in an instance where the ‘imprint’ reigns eternal Ms. Hamje eradicates the appeal of rigid structures in favor of sharp strokes of blue amidst the gray edifice looming before us. Perhaps Ms. Hamje remains at her most compelling when she reveals forms that allude to anything, but certainty. Layers of patchwork that characterize the nude as a vital exploration in form just as much as the light and shadow her work sheds like a subdued patchwork of expressive mystery.
Layer upon layer culture heaps on so many manifestations of ideology; cultural identity, gender identity, religious identity- poking and prodding our sensibilities with cattle prods designed to eradicate free thinking in favor of a noble truth at the end of the rainbow, yet once the colors bleed away the shimmering veil of deceit remains. People who express such concerns lead us by the nose to an untimely death where nothing is in fact challenged. In such a world the puny existence of our own lives could scarcely become contemplated. We must struggle and force ourselves through the maelstrom of societal shackles imposed upon us, but as soon as we discover the key to unlocking a particularly crafty lock of nasty design, another one latches on to our unsuspecting psyche. Peering desperately through a fish eye lens, pushing at the boundaries- contracting, so many struggle to avoid the hook dangling before gapping curiosity…
