Artist Statement #3, Semester II

Artist Statement
Cameron Bennett
Written May, 2010

How much are painted images like signage and how much, like signs, can a painting communicate an idea? Can signs and emblems be elevated to the level of art, or should art be elevated to the level of signage?
All around us we see the display of signs and emblems, which reminds us that we are a society well-accustomed to the use of representation, that is, things which stand for other things. These emblems can take the form of ideological representations, but are also used to represent basic commands, as in the pared-down, no-nonsense communicative power of everyday signage.
In my paintings, using signs as signs for representation itself, I am attempting to address questions about the use of representation, not only sociologically, as in the importance attached to the emblem as a representation of tribal identification or cultural ideology, but philosophically as well, as in the drawn or painted marks of the artist as emblems, emulations, or representations of the visual world.
Ultimately, this is done to discover whether painting can ever be freed from referring only to itself, and whether it can, with a clean conscience, represent something other than painting.