“Disappearing On A Hill”
three tier wall installation 32ft x12ft, acrylic paint
by Luke Ramsey and Justin B Williams
October 27th-December 2nd at A/V Space, Rochester, NY, USA, 2006
Curated by Cameron Farash
Photos: Graham Saathoff
This painting was made with an intentional narrative that focuses on the figure laying with it’s discarded bag on the top left corner of the piece. This is an open-ended story that invites different interpretations.
Shapes and lines are used to convey energy and motion. Everything in the painting aside from the naked figure are moving towards the right. The top right corner of the piece is the most chaotic and fractured. This is the intended climatic area, where all the energy and motion reaches a point where things start falling apart. The wall was constructed by members of the A/V space in a three-tier fashion with each ascending panel behind the previous. This gives the audience a different perspective of the shapes when looking at the piece from different angles. This increases the abstractness of the environment and enforces the kinetic energy we are trying to convey.
The figure however, lies in complete contrast to its surroundings, both aesthetically and symbolically. The line colors represent different parts of the figures essence. The black color is its identity, the red color is its physical body, and the blue color is its soul. The bag is a representation of what holds memories and experience. These energies are departing from the bag and returning to their environment.
The figure is an outsider. It has deflated from its physical world and is floating away towards another place. The anonymity of the figure invites the audience to use their imagination (as does the rest of the piece).
The figure lays on a dense, chaotic, colorful, and intense environment that is in constant motion. This is a feeling we get when we think of the world sometimes, and it’s abstractness is a representation of the things we don’t understand, but have to live with regardless. We are born from this environment. The world can be both beautiful and scary.
-Justin B. Williams October 22, 2006
