Cameron Gaut

12/6/04

Nearly every artist is influenced by the work of other artists. Every time we experience an image or work of art, we slightly refine our worldview, our taste, or our conception of art. The cumulative effect of a lifetime’s exposure to artwork is an ever-changing concept of individual art. Therefore, in every visual composition, we can observe a reflection of “the world in which it emerged” (Barrett 198). This observation prompts a question of context: “What about the world in which ‘Departure’ emerged?’”

The end of the 20 th century saw the rapid emergence of the technology era. This technology has made it immensely easier and cheaper to produce imagery and distribute imagery. Here in the 21 st century, we are saturated with images on a daily basis. Commercials, billboards, magazines, TV, DVD’s, popup ads, storefront displays, video billboards, are just a few examples of the images we are exposed to daily. It is my belief that my generation is the most tech-savvy, media drenched, and visually stimulated of them all. As Donald Kuspit eloquently said, “there is no way out from seeing art as a reflection or meditation or a comment on life” (217).

Naturally, the art that I create will be influenced by this visual culture. As an inquisitive, shy, and introspective child, I soaked in the world around me. I took everything in, learned from it, and processed it through my imagination and dreams. Art provided a way to express my imagination in visual terms. At a young age, I was introduced to computers in my home. My dad worked as a programmer, and he had a computer for us kids to play around with. Computers have always fascinated me, and they are a passion of mine. Part of what interests me about computers is that they allow a precision and exactitude that could never before have been fathomed previously. In many of my artworks, I attempt to achieve this precision. I think it is my innate need for order and stability that drives this desire. Unsatisfied with the mediocre or flawed, I strive to recreate perfection. In this painting, I attempted to remove the human from the picture. I wanted clean colors, straight lines, and crisp edges. Of course, I didn’t expect it to be perfect. After all, I’m only human.

The idea for the painting came to me as I was fooling around on the computer. I was listening to some music, and the word “departure” was in the song I was listening to at the time. With no specific intentions, I typed the word into Adobe Illustrator, and looked at it for a while. The palette of colors in the program included a range of hues and values for each color set. Arranged in tiny squares, this palette inspired me to use colored squares to stack around the word. After several minutes, I had my image. Several months later, I began painting. As I bought a large canvas, the idea came to me to recreate the image from my computer with acrylics. I knew if I was to imitate the precision of a computer, I had to get technical. I measured out distances, and luckily found some thin, quarter-inch thick tape. The tape was attached in rows and columns, and everything was centered. The font that I used for the image was printed out onto 3 separate sheets of paper, and taped together. Using it as a stencil, I taped it onto the canvas and painted through it. As it hangs on my wall now, I realize that the painting has so much personal meaning that I never initially intended.

The word departure, to me, symbolizes the act of losing oneself in one’s thoughts, daydreams, and fantasies. Fragmented shapes are seen in the colored squares which represent the lack of definition of the visual world after departing into a daydream; where the focus of attention is no longer the external world of sight, but the internal world where the illusion of color and light are only fabrications of our imaginations. In this world, material objects are reduced to detached, impressionistic observations of light.

Human vision seems fluid and unified. Our visual reality cannot be defined in units, unlike the output of digital technology. The perfect squares in the painting represent the geometry and precision of technology. If you have ever examined a TV or monitor very closely, you have noticed that the image is made up of tiny rectangles or squares of red, green, and blue that combine to form a single pixel. I see the painting as a fragmented dream state viewed through enlarged pixels. The variation in color value creates a sort of composition of vague objects from cloudy memories.

Although I may have plenty to say about my own work, “meanings of artworks are not limited to what their artists intended them to mean.” (198). Keeping this in mind, I believe that all artwork should allow for individual interpretation. During the art show, several people stated that they could not be sure of what I intended to communicate with this piece. However, I wanted them to find their own meaning. Although I have already explained the personal meaning that this painting has to me, I believe it is also open for interpretation to anyone. I used abstraction to a near-minimalism degree for this reason. The repetition of geometric shape and grid-line is intentionally non-representational. If I had painted a realistic airplane, the field of possible interpretations might have diminished. Additionally, the word “departure” is intended to evoke the emotion that is attached to the word. The ambiguity lies in the variation of emotional or memorial responses to an inert, symbolic word. “Departure” may evoke sorrow for the recently departed in some individuals, yet in other instances, it may conjure up sights and sounds of the airport or train station. The variation of interpretation is aided by the word’s several definitions. Departure is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as

1. The act of leaving.

2. A starting out, as on a trip or a new course of action.

3. A divergence or deviation, as from an established rule, plan, or procedure.

But definitions are only one half of the picture. Every word, no matter how one defines it, has different meanings to each individual.

One observation stated that “the word departure usually has a negative or sad connotation.” I think that this individual doesn’t realize that personally, the word usually has a negative or sad connotation to him. When I hear the word, however, it isn’t the slightest bit melancholy. Another few implied that perhaps I am “leaving a part of [my] life behind [me].” While this interpretation is interesting, it was not my intention to imply this.

A separate viewer explained that the painting “conveys a sense of confusion on the part of the artist.” I can understand how she saw confusion in the piece; the colored blocks exist in rows of colors, but the individual value of each block is more or less arbitrary. The colors interact from row to row. For example, one row is composed of blue mixed with a bit of green. Another is red and raw umber. The intention was to avoid creating clear boundaries of color. Things in this world cannot always be explicitly defined and categorized, however much we may want them to be. The intermingling of color within the rows can be considered a reaction to this.

One interpreter wrote that when she sees this piece, she thinks of an airport. Continuing, she wrote that “the little blocks are like a map with all the terminals and their waiting rooms partitioned out.” I’d never thought of that before, but it is easy to see how the word “departure” can give it a connotation of airports.

One particular interpretation that I enjoyed said that the subject of the painting was equality. “No matter what color the squares are, they are equal size.” This viewer stated that this equality was not necessarily from a racial viewpoint, but perhaps on a social level. In the same interpretation, this person said that the departure represented a transition to take place; a departure from an idealistic dream world where everything is equal to the real world. This viewer mentioned dreams in the interpretation, but not in the sense that I intended. But it is still a valid interpretation. Instead of departing from a dream world into the real world, the painting invited me to do the opposite; to take a moment to leave the “real” world and enter the depths of my own imagination.

What do all of these interpretations have in common? They all are legitimate analyses of the artwork. To interpret is to make sense through language, which is a very individual concept. Language is just a collection of lifeless symbols; our experiences and emotions define each word that we use. Therefore, “Departure” will be meaningful in different ways for every person.

Sources Cited

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA. 1992.

Barrett, Terry. Interpreting Art. McGraw Hill, New York. 2003.