The more I have learned about science and what we do know, the more my attention has wandered to what we really don’t know. Science can explain a lot, yet somehow it is still unable to answer many questions that can arise in a child’s mind.
Once we are adults we lose that fresh, childlike perspective on science and reality. Like surrealists attempting to tap back into that view of reality, I have made these “machines” to address some dreamlike questions.
I have combined massproduced machine parts alongside unique and delicate objects because it echoes the way we view the world. Most of us are somehow able to accept hard scientific facts along-side tender fleshy emotions that are perhaps as far from science as one can get.
I am influenced by many artists’ skills I admire. Everything from Claude Monet’s choices in color, the surrealist Mac Ernst’s usage of nature as a tool to gain texture, Joseph Cornell’s three-dimensional collages, the free spontaneous forms of Alex Pardee, and the careful spatial awareness of Carl Andre.
Also the thinkers, comedians, and provokers (past and present) like Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Brian Cox, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Michio Kaku, Bill Maher and George Carlin.
Jennifer Ellison
Artist Statement 2013
Once we are adults we lose that fresh, childlike perspective on science and reality. Like surrealists attempting to tap back into that view of reality, I have made these “machines” to address some dreamlike questions.
I have combined massproduced machine parts alongside unique and delicate objects because it echoes the way we view the world. Most of us are somehow able to accept hard scientific facts along-side tender fleshy emotions that are perhaps as far from science as one can get.
I am influenced by many artists’ skills I admire. Everything from Claude Monet’s choices in color, the surrealist Mac Ernst’s usage of nature as a tool to gain texture, Joseph Cornell’s three-dimensional collages, the free spontaneous forms of Alex Pardee, and the careful spatial awareness of Carl Andre.
Also the thinkers, comedians, and provokers (past and present) like Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Brian Cox, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Michio Kaku, Bill Maher and George Carlin.
Jennifer Ellison
Artist Statement 2013
