Ron Desmett

Artist Statement

Many people long to return to a simpler time, a time they "remember", or wish they remembered. Yet many of these periods had their own turmoil, with job loss or fortunes lost or ultimately lives lost. In my paintings I try to connect a time past to the present by appropriating images of both the past and present, images of high and low culture, art and advertisement or entertainment. By juxtaposing, I try to wrestle the images away from the nostalgic past to give them new meaning or use the cliched meanings that have become attached to subvert the present. By connecting periods, I want to show that "These are the best of times, these are the worst of times" as history always repeats itself and by knowing history we can have control over our lives. My work deals with the consequences of actions from the individual up and from society down, consequences that are now compounded by a global economy. In the final analysis, I want the work to hit the viewer in the pit of the stomach before the front lobe of the brain.

My paintings are not totally narrative, although they allude to stories or possible stories. The works always start with a very specific idea but then I allow them to have their own life. Appropriated images evoke a feeling of " A Ha! I know that thing" or "Where is that from" and then the additional pictorial structure leads to clarity or murkiness as the viewer searches for "the way". We jump to conclusions when reading the paper or watching the news, trying to force things to make sense, as we know or want the world to be.

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