THEODORE SVENNINGSEN

ABOUT THE  TEXT BASED  ARTWORK

 

The text / conceptual work is comprised of various areas of interest. One area of interest concerns the interrelationships between individual persons and the larger group, and investigates the difficulties and inabilities of these certain individuals to fit in.

 

A second, unrelated to the first, is involved with theory driven art, and concerns the exploration of the self-referential substratum forming the underpinnings of such art.

 

The text, words ( or signs, as words are referred to in semiotics ) are, in these pieces, used in a their usual, everyday, denotative narrative manner. The text also becomes, in the work, an aesthetic entity in itself, independent of its denotative meaning. A conflation of these two aspects is integral to the work. Logic symbolism forms the aesthetic element in a number of the pieces.

 

Additional areas of concern involve the investigation of money in society and its position as almost the only criterion of importance in the judging a life, dominating and almost obliterating all truly human propensities. Another concern involves the actual, but mostly ignored, temporariness of life.

 

Although all of the above is the very substance of the art, it all remains withing a consideration of the visual experience, for, after all is said and done, it is the visual arts.