deankessmann

artist statement

What remains consistent throughout my practice is an intense interest in the relationships between abstraction and representation, physical objects and digital information, compression and expansion. Each new project builds upon and expands my larger body of work, while at the same time folding into it. My ongoing goal as an artist is to create fresh iterations that fuse the lessons learned with happenstance that is part and parcel of the creative process. The intuitive impulse in my practice is balanced with a more critical and reasoned approach. If one looks closely at the subtle twists and turns that have led me from one project to the next, it should be apparent that my meandering is with purpose. I strive to create work that is intellectually engaging and visually striking, open to multiple interpretations without being overly ambiguous, smart and challenging without becoming pretentious or abstruse. While my choice of media is, at times, made for practical purposes, these decisions are, more often than not, arrived at for very specific conceptual reasons: a recognition and appreciation of the fact that materials have meaning.