The Map Is Not That

The Map Is Not That (The Map Is Not the Territory) 84 x 60”, oilstick on folded aluminum.

Navigational and star charts, satellite shots, gps, glyphs, geography, molecular maps. Micro to Macro. Photons and suns. Flatness vs. vastness, circles against grids.  “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” -- maps (art) as abstraction of a reality that is not possible to accurately capture. A map can never be correct -- it would have to be the size of the land to be so... and even then, to be accurate, would have to include that map, and so on. Map as different from a mirror, or a window, but still not reality. “Real Housewives Of” is anything but that.

But sometimes... though the map is not the territory, the abstraction -- the poem, the painting --- can actually give truer insight (and reality can shadow.)

The substrate in this painting is bent like an unfolded map; concavities have been drilled into the many-layered colors, and they, along with the scored, scratched and sanded metal grids, luminesce as you move; silver light trails and sparkles highlighting/undermining the 2D/3D elements, and the matte of the medium.

Other works on aluminun, 84 x 60”, (more about HERE):

And also these recombinant and intermixable aluminum panel works (more about HERE); below are a few of the infinite arrangements of the works, see the link for the “seed” (original) paintings: