KNIFE IN A GUNFIGHT
I had the individual painting titles worked out to this project before I'd had more than a couple paintings done. Each piece, while having a target subject, was all meant to fall into a complete series surrounding the idea of growing up in the 21st century.
While sifting through piles of old magazines, it became more and more apparent to me that, while there have been significant technological advances in the past fifty years, nothing has really culturally changed. The rhetoric in society, government, advertising and popular culture have remained constant, and now the volume has only been amplified and the messages designed to be more invasive.
The series is meant to illustrate the journey from discovering a path you may want to walk and how generally unattainable our end goals and dreams are, as they are blown so out of proportion by the media that inebriates us daily. As a majority of time for the average American is consumed by jobs, material goods become valuable since they do not take up time. Time, as a commodity, is too valuable for most to purchase, and so plastic is next.
And due to this, we have a media that advertises to us at our worst - in any decade. And we buy things to fill the void in the dreams that were out of reach to begin with, or just ones we let slip through our fingers. This destroyed texture is life at honest moments, close walks down long roads, things built up to be torn down again.
So Knife In A Gunfight is a twelve step reflection on various parts of growing up now through the lens of advertisements from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s; how initial good intentions spiraled out of control, and we are left in a mess, identities lacking due to oversaturated social networks online and a failure to appreciate tactile environments. The entire series has been glossed over in a hard expoxy and dulled from a reflective sheer to a slightly dulled sheen, so no matter how much you want to feel that authenticity of the layers built up, all you'll get is the sleek, modern nature of everything.
12 paintings on 12"x12" hardboard with a 3/4" cradle for easy hanging.
All original content © Colin Smith 2009.
A Distorted Perspective Production.