Ontological Road Maps
Ontological Surveillance Maps
Ontology is a central theme throughout my work because it deals with the nature of existence or being by analyzing concepts about essence, substance, time, location, space, and identity. My work addresses these ideas by building upon physical, temporal, and literal metaphors that are often used to convey ideas about a process as well as a product. For instance, each drawing is not only a finished work that represents a place, but it is also a reflection of the hand of the artist, the act of making lines. Each of these drawings involves a labor-intensive process where much time is needed for construction and development. Once the drawing is complete, it is a picture of time. That is, each drawing reveals the time it takes to make a road map and then each finished drawing actually represents that time. All along, there is a literal play on mapping. Each drawing represents a process (of mapmaking, of creating roads) and a place (a representation of existence that can be either real or imagined).
Like the Road Maps (ink or pencil on paper, panel or wall) the Surveillance Maps (ink or pencil and acrylic on painted panel) begin with the order and structure of a New World city grid and gradually "build" outward into the convoluted confusion of the urban sprawl of twenty-first century cities in the United States. Surveillance implies a sense of watchful supervision from outside as well as from within. It can be attributed to the norms or conventions of existence (or of map reading) that are thrust upon individuals from others and to those rules which individuals (or artists in general) impose upon themselves. The Surveillance Maps consist of two panels. The panel on the right contains an ontological road map (ink or pencil on gessoed panel). The panel on the left is a painting of a projected digital detail photograph taken of the right panel. These two panels are then juxtaposed, resulting in the completed diptych.
Landscapes (Cutouts)
Traditional landscape "paintings or drawings" with a twist or two, these excised road maps are found and revealed through the process of cutting away everything except the roads. They are what Marcel Duchamp would call, "rectified ready-mades.” All of these maps are particular to a certain time and actual place. The roads in these maps reflect the topography of the land they represent shaped by the forces of nature and the technology of humans. Collectively, those forces are evidence of the passage of time. Similarly, as the "cutouts" hang on the wall for months or years and droop and sag, in effect, changing, they are intended to simulate the undulating flow of the earth, the result of erosion, or the effects of humans.
© 2007 Robert J. Walden, Jr.