Geo Sipp


Artist Statement:

The primary emphasis of my images is to reflect our experiences as consumers of the media in the aftermath of September Eleventh. As we go about our lives the media constantly reminds us of our exposure and vulnerability. The visual perception that is promoted is of our being continuous observers of the human condition. A sense of being under threat heightens our awareness and is implicit in our roles as parents, friends and guardians.

The media trivializes threats by distilling them into short, dramatic events. Meaning and emotion become codified. I create images as responses to social and political situations, but no attempt is made to editorialize the content. The work is intended to reevaluate the visual narrative to which we’ve become conditioned.

A variety of media is used to create my work. The decision to create a drawing or a painting or a print is primarily intuitive. Yet, because they are multiples, prints reference the mass marketing of published imagery in a news cycle. The Algeria Series references the Iraq War and Middle East instability. The fact that the images are multiples printed from several plates alludes to the tradition of photojournalism and role as arbiter of historic events. Wolves in the City is the title of the Algerian Series; these pieces are the illustrations to a graphic novel that I am creating. The images are adapted from a variety of sources – newspapers, magazines, newsreels and my picture files of reference material. They are then drawn, scanned into the computer and manipulated in PhotoShop; Solarplates are then exposed and the images are created as limited edition prints. Other images are drawn directly on grained glass.

Through appropriation and reconstruction I am attempting to create an awareness and visual vocabulary that is both accessible to an audience and reflective of the complexity of the human condition.