ARTIST STATEMENT

World Line

In ancient times, mapmakers charted a ‘known world’ of measured lands and places, bounded by unexplored realms of imaginary wonder. Today, we regard these maps with a mixture of respect and amusement, charmed by the antiquated worldview they depict. In the same way, future generations will look back on us.

What is the known world? The features of this abstract geography aren’t roads, rivers and towns, but rather an intangible network of knowledge, beliefs, values and emotions. Such is the framework we call reality. We forget that it is just an idea, until, like tourists returning from a foreign land, we see familiar things anew.

In our complex modern society, ancient religious traditions exist side by side with new social and political relationships, and revolutionary scientific knowledge. Like our bodies themselves, the culture we inhabit is one we inherit, passed down through millennia of code, sign and symbol.

Technology has quite literally been incorporated, on personal as well as cultural scales, transforming the way we live, learn, compete and communicate. Computers, the Internet, and cellular communication have facilitated a vast pooling of data, while enabling new forms of social networking and personal ‘non-locality’. New scientific instruments, including telescopes, space probes, particle colliders and medical imaging devices, extend the capacity of our sense organs at an exponential rate. Like cave dwellers dragged into the light, we are challenged to assimilate this new vision.

Yet as new marvels are revealed daily, the old mysteries persist - love and pain, beauty and violence. How can life and consciousness form from inanimate particles, or why should there be something rather than nothing?

A map is inherently a conceptual space. Within its symbolic convention, we locate relationships and accept various modes of representation. I embrace this matrix and, within it, mix the visual paradigms of architecture (plan and elevation), technical diagrams and cartography, giving free range to a wide assortment of images.

My fascination with images and symbols began with undergraduate study of Maya hieroglyphic writing. As the small glyphs conjured a vivid impression of that ancient culture, I realized the world was awash in visual artifacts. From relics of lost civilizations to today’s front page, they offer windows into so many worlds. Whether perusing an illuminated manuscript, a Feynman diagram, an advertisement, or assembly instructions from Ikea, there is ample opportunity for both intrigue and insight. In this vein, I have collected material for many years, and festooned my studio walls with an ever-evolving assortment of drawings and clippings. These are my “thinking walls”; they feed my process by allowing ideas to arise from the images and their juxtaposition.

These new paintings reflect my engagement with an internal narrative of ideas. They aspire to raise questions, not answer them. The journey is the destination, and, the map is the territory.

Alison Berry New York City, November 2010

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