Jeremy Flick

My recent works interests have been premised on the dull impulse of engaging an artistic investigation of the found patterns of tinted security envelopes. The works are not mere formal, reductionist exercises, but very self-conscious investigations of abstraction. Many of the envelope patterns allude to ‘painting’ in both their geometric and gestural aspects. I am currently interested in the idea that when removed from their common, everyday usage these patterns could be mistaken for serious critical investigations of abstraction.  Through works ranging from traditional drawings and paintings, to meticulous, serial projects, as well as through photography and video, the displacement of the patterns is one of mindful fragmentation, redirecting the attention focused on the pattern away from the context of the envelope to reposition it in the rubric of abstraction.  By combining mechanical and digital methods with other painterly processes, I transform pieces of ephemera into works capable of symbolic and communicative exchange as a way to offer the understanding that even the most banal or trivial, and the most marginalized patterns and decorative motifs can become symbolically, even poetically, vested with meaning.