John Noestheden

Artist Statement - John Noestheden

Beauty and control dynamics are unifying elements in my 30 year practice. Working freely between drawing, installation, sculpture and performance, my work has strong conceptual inclinations. Patience, simplicity and persistence are constants that inform reiterative, work intensive processes. I fetishize labour. These overriding concerns derive from a personal need to impose order and control while uncovering the consequences of sharing control, either partial or total. Behaving like a machine, working with a machine and working while attached to a machine have become desirable experiential conditions that deliver their own contingencies of (un)predictability and (im)perfection. In each body of work, I have chosen media and processes for their (assumed) control mechanisms that explore the dynamic edges of randomness/pattern and intuition/embedded behaviour. These continuing investigations are informed by the elements and conditions of the universe, the random patterning of nature, the machine and Chaos Theory. I believe that art and science are interpretive practices which attempt to represent, model, reveal, explore and discover. I am particularly inspired by the astronomer and the mathematician whose conceptual journeys rely on symbols, models and codes.

Apian Series

In 1531, Peter Apian, a Renaissance astronomer, made a drawing that included stars, constellations and comet tails. This drawing was reproduced in an astronomy text using halftone dots. As the reproduction was enlarged on a photocopier, the dots became very visible and actually represented deep outer space. That dot pattern was inflated, painstakingly reproduced and then numbered according to the number sequence in Pi. The hues were determined by numbering the colors of the spectrum from 0 to 9 where 0 is black.

Diamond Drawings

In the Diamond Drawings, I am investigating control, pattern and beauty. The silver crystals are controlled and ordered in either rigid mathematical structures drawn onto the surface of the paper, or dispersed randomly through vibration techniques (physically by pounding on the drawing surface, or mechanically by using an industrial vibration machine).

The silver crystals reference the patterns found in star formations – as modeled in the charts and star maps that are constructed in an attempt to understand and make sense of the universe. What gives these drawings life is the random light reflections projecting through the silver crystals, shimmering across the surface of the paper. The experience is different for each viewer. Some see diamonds. Some see stars. Some see structure or randomness. What I experience, as the artist, is control and loss of control. I see these works as spectacles.

Imaging II

In these works, I am responding to 21st Century photographic exploration of the Universe (infra-red and UV filtering, lengthy and multiple exposures, and composite image constructions). The mediation begins with half-tone reproductions of the Renaissance astronomer Peter Apian’s drawings found in astronomy texts, or of illustrations of star clusters found in commercial star guides. Twenty sequential photo-mechanical enlargements are then made, substantially altering the images which had originally been recorded through observation. Projected and then accurately rendered with brush and India Ink, the work attempts to reveal both unfathomable scale and that which is unrepresentable.

Square Root of Two

By embossing this quasi-random sequence of infinite numbers (generated through the computer), I surrender control and behave like a machine (a scribe). My control is the design, size, and presentation of the numbers on the paper field. Each “drawing” contains a selected number of digits, memorized in a sequence, and then hammered into the surface of the paper with a number punch. Human error (seizures) and imperfection become random variables. All seizures are accurately recorded on the master sheets of computer printed hard copy. This body of work will contain 50,000 singly embossed digits - approximately 4234 numbers per page.



©Copyright 2006 - John Noestheden - Email: John.Noestheden@uregina.ca Website by: Etherhill Gallery powered by: Zen Photo