Brian C. Russell's Artist Statement

Walking through a park I noticed a peculiar tree. It appeared to have been sick much of its long life and had grown into a mutant. Growing out as it went up to the sun. This blob had frozen hard gray armor for its bark. Not only was this tree tall but it sloped down gradually to a wide bottom instead of a straight geometric cylinder. It fascinated me for changing or adapting from what we consider a "healthy" tree that grows straight and tall to the sun. The previous paragraph that I completed during my last semester of college still has some potency in my life. Now I see that tree was not only a symbol for my work but a description of myself.

Throughout my life I have felt that I was full of a sickness like that tree. I have recently discovered that it was only a perceptual trick. Overwhelmed by massive input from my senses I felt awkward. It was so confusing that I even thought that I had grown into a mutant. When really the mutation was just variance or chance that made me who I am. I revel in the confusion. Now I try to see confusion not as a dead end but as an opportunity to fill an empty space or answer the mysterious. I have spent so much time wondering Why this or Why that that I have immersed in technical considerations of the process and concept for creation. When I have completed a piece I occasionally find myself disappointed with the results. Sometimes I do not recognize the work. ÒWhere did this come from?Ó, I wonder. This bafflement is usually a signal for a great insight. When I finish my pieces they are free. At this point they might as well be dead. I see no lives for them in places were most artists put their creations. Galleries might as well be a room with no doors. Many modern people can not feel immersed in the world of a painting. The world of the artist remains aloof. If it is to continue to live after I Òset it free", then I must find it a proper arena. What is its life and where will it live? The media I chose dictates the answering of this question. If I chose to make a film and the whole world sees it, what life does it have? Can a theater truly influence or just titillate? If this film is on video tape and is in every home in the world what is it doing but becoming a paper weight? Can infiltrating the conscious or unconscious minds of millions be enough? Can this be life that I am looking for my work? No. I want to see my work grow on its accord. Double like cells reproducing or mutating like a virus unnoticed until someone Ògets itÒ. Possibly to be inspected by a rare individual who puts my work under a microscope trying to figure out how it ticks.

If my work could change on its own after I was through making my first marks then it would have real life. If my art could mutate on any level becoming something other than what I let into the world, that would be achievement.

I see narrative media using the moving image as the key to the kind of life after creation that I seek for my work. Whether it be analogue or digital, chemical or electrical, the story becomes behavioral gnosis embedded in being, in ones' self. A living set of instructions that can influence thought and action. Do I mean to create artificial life? I do not know. I just intend to allow the forces of modern media world to sample my creations altering them by the simple touch or thought of other sentient beings.

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