Brendan Barnes

Artist Statement I have several series of works in different mediums with a common goal of coaxing the viewer into a relationship with the unknown. Each series is a different strategy for achieving something that is not understood, both as the artist but also for the viewer. The purpose of the creation of mysterious or enigmatic objects and images is to eliminate an experience of understanding. Without the ability to create or comprehend the narrative for the works I have created, the mind is forced into a wrestling match with itself, one that inevitably ends in silence. Our mind once it has given up trying to comprehend, finds rest in this silence. My work is a never-ending quest for new and unexplainable processes. My guiding philosophy in my work is that if I can understand it then it is dead. In all my work there is an underlying structure that I use for play. Most of the work utilizes symmetry as its base structure, except for the “Speaking Stones” which are the product of the uncontrollable behavior of an air pocket in clay. I utilize a base structure as a means of eliminating my own mind in my process. This involves finding modes of logic which are not comprehensible and whose web of correlations lead to deeper states of unknowing rather than resolution. Our minds are powerful world builders, and our imaginations have the capacity to entertain us in what can become a continuous distraction from the present moment. My experiences with moments of being present are that the world seems to open and manifest all its secrets. What was once dead becomes full of possibility. This experience of vast possibilities comes from the experience of not knowing or non-comprehension, or in another word wonderment.