Brian Gordon

also for the viewer, as well. Each time I set out to make a collage my central purpose is to create a world that houses an endless amount of narratives. Each collage supports the cohabitation of images (clipped from magazines, medical texts, valentines, etc. spanning the last 150+ years) that originally were completely unrelated to one another; and the stories of these worlds I construct are brought to life through the unique interpretation of you the viewer. Through the act of interpretation, collage can serve as an incredible vehicle for those seeking to expand their process of associating detail in the world. And the more we train ourselves to be open to finding how objects can relate to one another serves to improve our overall executive functioning. Someone once told me that there is no wrong way to make a collage, so by that logic there must also be no wrong interpretation of one. I am so close to completely doing away with titles because I do not wish to take away from how a person might individually engage with my work.

When I really think about it, a work of art dies in isolation but can continue to live through its relationship with the viewer. It was the visual poet William Carlos Williams who offered that “art should always be in a process of generating more art.” If that is truly the case then your interpretations, whatever comes to you as a result of looking at the art in this room (your thoughts in words, associated images that appear in your mind, connections to bits or whole pieces of music...etc!), contributes to what Williams described.

It is your relationship to art that keeps it alive: that, to me, is the real, living art.

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