David Lloyd
statement
The practice of my art has taken me in many directions over the years including commercial art and design, sign painting, screen printing and printmaking. Currently I am painting almost exclusively with oil paint on prepared canvas. My latest series of work has taken me away from a loose expressionist approach toward a more representational 'realist' approach to the subject matter. I find his approach essential to the elucidation of the intent of my art.
I do not pretend to say anything new with my art. It is my opinion that everything is already said. At best my art is an interruption. My works are also suggestive of a narrative. They exist within a network of 'already' narrative, a web of social exchange - language, action, significations, and representations - all of which are read against a background of western culture serving as a mechanism of collectivity. In this context of the agreed upon, the collective realm, there is no originality. My work is a product of this collective cultural voice, the shared cultural meanings and codes. Regardless of the intended meaning of my work, it is in the interpretation the viewer brings to the work, in the act of viewership, that the works are turned inside out. Where the discourse starts to take place. 'Interpretation enunciates the multiple fields of visuality and surfaces of interpretation that are articulated in the work' (Bhabha). We live in, and my work cannot be other than an expression of, already agreed upon historical narratives that have culminated in and include post-modern notions and practices.
In
choosing subject matter, it is usually that which is most obvious, most visible
in the day-to-day of our culture, that captures my attention. It is my intention
to recontextualize the ordinary, the taken for granted, and place it in a
context of the sublime so that it occurs as ridiculous. Ordinary everyday
occurrences such as war, recycling, walking or bicycling, crossing the street
and the practices and ideologies surrounding these events are then recontextualized
in order to strip away, reveal or distort the obvious cultural meanings associated
with it. To me a painting is successful when it interrupts, or disrupts, the
already narrative associated with the usual, or obvious interpretation of
the subject matter. This approach occasionally occurs as humorous, or ironic;
however, I assert my work contains no humour. If the viewer finds humour,
possibly in the discourse between the painted and the viewer, something was
interrupted.