Gateway - Mixed Media (Etching, Serigraphy)

"Gateway," 2013. Ren Adams.

From Alchemy of Image 2013 series.

Original.
18 x 26”
MiIxed media printmaking - drypoint, serigraphy, woodcut, trace monotype, acrylic monotype on Thai Kozo paper.

About the Alchemy of Image series:

We live in an age of information—a socio-cultural climate that straddles the material and immaterial, our daily interactions taking place across physical and theoretical environments. Space and time collapse in the face of this digitally-driven landscape, redefined by delivery and access. As we engage this data cascade, theorist Henry Jenkins claims “[we] construct our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information extracted from the media flow… transformed into resources through which we make sense of our everyday lives.” This pronounced hypertextuality allows for connectivity, remix and recombination previously inconceivable in visual art (and culture at large).

My primary body of work investigates the nature of emergence in the data cascade—addressing the way being materializes from non-being, matter from the void of non-matter, in relation to time-relativity and fluid perspective. Extending into the hypertext of time and space, I use visual vocabulary to address information as matter, the interconnectivity of networks (biological, social, spatial) and the deep virtual space where it all takes shape.

Synthesizing ideas found in physics, information theory, Eastern philosophy, archaeology, digital culture, mass media and linguistics, I embrace the interdisciplinary nature of mixed media, layering printmaking techniques with drawing, painting and digital processing. These layers address convergence, the originating space where substance takes root, generating a virtual archaeological dig where viewers uncover artifacts, moments and mysterious terrain. The resulting alchemy of image integrates micro and macro components, revealing transitory connections while expressing multiple points in time simultaneously.

There are endless networks within networks—the systems of matter, information and social interaction spiraling, remixing, inviting deep exploration. I aim for a relativity of past and present, matter and awareness: pieces become field notes for a digital, personally mythological, universe.