ARTIST STATEMENT
When you spend most of your waking life at a computer, and you’re an artist, you’ll find ways to make art. It was a blissful discovery that I could sign my name with my mouse. Why? Because that meant I could draw lines on a virtual page. And I could even sign in color! That meant I could make colored lines. What happens to the artist without a studio, stuck in her office then?
I hate to admit that I had no particular intent (other than to express myself vividly) when I created my first series of digital works entitled “Inside-Out”. It was simply a matter of having all the tools at hand: the computer was there, the mouse there, the vast color palette was there, the hand was there, the heart was there, the soul was there, the impulse was there, and I’m quite certain however shocking or intrusive, the artist (that would be me) was there. It would seem nothing was missing except the “ideal”—that generous beautiful world, which would allow me to indulge all of my talents not to mention: a canvas, a brush, a studio, north light and enough money and time to paint endlessly. I think all artists (and I mean true-born artists) have a desire to communicate, to flamboyantly express what they see and perhaps to convey, if only to themselves, what they don’t know they see. Speaking for myself, I have a compulsion to create, which I use to escape the “doom” to which we are all victim. My compulsion leads me to immerse myself within my inner conflicts and to give purpose to the “struggle” (which is too often wasted energy); thus to create a space on this planet which is acceptable to me, to transform both what might be ugly and what might be beautiful into what is definitely personal.
You will notice that I like close-ups. That is because, if I look at the broader picture [of the world], I am more often than not, frightened by the sight. — I see the power of man destroying nature and humanity. I often wish I were the kind of courageous leader that could shift the “powers-that-be” and change the world by making others follow me to a harmonious peaceful end, but I’m not that person and I never will be. Yet by choosing to narrow my view down to a single object or to one flawed living creature reacting to a single mysterious moment, I seize my own little “star” and thus, evaluate the consequences of power quite differently. I suppose in my wildest dreams, I hope to take you with me, although so long as I am constructive, and enshrined on my little star, I’m relieved and fearless with or without you.
Personally, I am interested in making images that are “strangely beautiful” – to use flaws and defects as a way of enhancing beauty. Letting the mistakes remain, is my way of correcting them. And you will note that I didn’t use a model (flawed or perfect) for the portraits, or carefully arrange flawless strawberries or wilted daisies for a still-life, or plant my easel by a glistening or raging river at magic-hour to capture a breathtaking or ominous landscape. — I’ll admit again that I don’t know from where any of these images came, but what I know ends up on my canvas expresses what’s inside me and perhaps some of what’s inside you as well. This is all to say, that “Inside-Out” shows much less what I see, than it does how I see. Art, even a still-life or portrait is not literal, it is a warped reflection that even the artist doesn’t recognize because it was hatched from the “inside, out”, and I believe that even the artist with intentions would say, it’s no more absolute or definable than the viewer’s reaction to it. You might see something quite different than I, and you too will be right. Yet if you listen closely to all that might be said, no matter how it came to be, the image screams or whispers [trust me], “it’s you!”
About “Inside Out”
by Judy Klein