Henry Mandell

Artist Statement

One does not only wish to be understood when one writes;
one wishes just as surely not to be understood.
- Fredrich Nietzsche

As I experience the dynamism of the world around me, I work to make pictures that correspond between the complexity of my perceptions and the complexity of the world itself. For me the tradition of visual abstraction remains the finest source of ideas about the world. In my work, ideas, facts, stories and poetry find their way into the images through the use of language as the main image source. My images are composed completely of texts. Lately I have altered bodies of text, reworking the patterns of words into new positions and then altering the shapes of the words themselves. Reassigning visual order to tangle, encode and reveal an intuitive vision. This opens up language into new visual meaning.

I have always worked with language as a visual source because languages are abstract both in nature and in usage. The process of viewing text and decoding information engages my brain in a lifelong challenge to process meaning. I use digital tools to allow me to have intimate contact with the evolving technology of language. Reading a weather report provides information about conditions in the world. In my work, using the text of a weather report as the source of an abstract image is my way of connecting an essence of the world with traditions of painting and literature.

Like many examples of rule based art that has come before, my work uses an established set of symbols and rules and breaks them down to achieve new and exciting possibilities. More and more diverse disciplines use new visual models to support concepts that are very esoteric, even scientific. The resulting flood of information has taken on the distinct language of visual abstraction. I’m finding a way to develop my own intuition about how the world looks and feels in this age of information. I want my work to convey its essence in a way that is beyond complete understanding, that is my key to real knowledge.

January, 2007

Images