WWW.WesHempel.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
STATEMENT:
By combining art historical elements with contemporary figures, I attempt to create narrative paintings that function in a revisionist manner, commenting on contemporary culture. I have found that the ambiguity and sense of displacement arising from these juxtapostions can appeal to viewers in ways that I cannot have foreseen, and I find myself increasingly drawn to elements where the relationships are less clear. The non-verbal aspect of painting appeals to me, the idea of entering into an image without having words, at least initially, to explain what's going on.
ABOUT THE FLOATING HOUSE IMAGERY
In a number of my paintings, buildings float in the sky above a landscape or ocean. I find myself, as I am engaged in the painting process, constructing narratives around this imagery, and I like to hear of viewers who respond to the finished work by inventing stories of their own. Common threads do exist. The most human of objects, buildings can symbolize many things: home, family, shelter, safety, human creativity and ingenuity. I think the picture of a house floating in the sky can be arresting precisely because a tension often exists between our idealization of these elements and the more mundane experiences of our everyday lives. In this regard, the paintings may give voice to our strivings. The houses may speak to our desires to push ahead toward some goal that is just out of reach, yet close, not unattainable.
THE GIFT OF KNOWLEDGE
A male figure in a business suit balances precariously on a stack of encyclopedias rising into the sky above a distant landscape. When I was painting this image, I was thinking about the relationship between received knowledge (our acculturation into society) and a more personal knowledge gained by direct confrontation with nature. It seems we both gain and lose something with the wealth of knowledge we are given by the society that surrounds us. The benefits of science, technology, medicine, art, etc., are an enormous gift. Yet what we lose, the enchantment of a world we confront on our own, directly, without its meaning being determined for us by the thoughts of others, also seems valuable. This figure, fully ensconced in contemporary society (as denoted by his attire), struggles to find a balance on the foundation of received knowledge as he simultaneously strives to embrace the sky.
MYTHOLOGY
My occasional series of mythology paintings was born out of my fascination with the way the stories of classical mythology are able to embody large human truths (which generally resist conceptualization) while containing at the same time fanciful, often enigmatic elements. The large number of distortions and variations in the multiple versions and translations over the course of time, however, also raise questions about the actual stories themselves and the underlying messages they intend to convey. The paintings, then, function as an invitation to the viewer to engage in an examination both of our fascination with classical mythology and of how we have learned it -- not to mention what exactly we have learned.