Peter McFarlane conceptually based sculptor, mixed media and installation artist. For him, art is a cathartic necessity. It allows him to engage with a certain self-awareness which, in turn, informs everything he creates.in his words….
My circuit board paintings arose from working as a computer sales consultant back in the early 1990's. I was appalled at the computer’s speed of redundancy and was determined to extend its life. My son was born around that time and after I would come home from work and put him to bed, I would head to the studio and start to work. I painted the night scape because that was the landscape I saw. Working late in my studio I could always place myself as one of the "ignited" lights in the painting. After much trial and error, I discovered that by painting the circuit board, and re-igniting the circuits, I could create a landscape that appealed to the subjective and objective view. Over time, I created traffic and lightning and other features that played with the metaphors associated with circuit boards and power. . The work was more in the realm of the aesthetic, but I found the idea of making landscape beauty out of landfill components appealing. The circuit board, to me, is the perfect contemporary "canvas" or "platform". It is such an integral part of the global village and contained in so many of our consumer goods that we rely upon to stay "connected" or "consumed".
The used object is just the foothold for my interrogation of understanding. It is not so much about re-cycling as it is about a poetic re-contextualizing of object and idea. It is similar geography and architecture to urban topography as well as the connection to the circuitry of the mind enhance its intrinsic metaphoric value.
I am endlessly translating and updating my inner visual language into visual art. My art is an outlet and a way of documenting ideas, concepts and the designs of my inner world: designs which are synthesized from my experience in the realities of the outer world. I move back and forth between acute consciousness and instinct.
Everything I encounter presents possibilities for my art. Everything has potential. Any and all objects can be used to create something, to make and re-make what I find in the world. The process requires searching for the materials that will commit me to original work, and intimately connect me to a self-engendered vision. The objects or images I contend with are not necessarily the art, but they always function as the language to serve the idea. There is a recognition or re-cognition of the materials to assist in generating a versatile, multi-layered narrative. My intention is to put things together in a way that moves the senses, and creates vivid, compelling, infectious imagery. Often I count on confusing cultural assumptions and re-contextualizing consumer objects to give them new meaning.
One of my first jobs as an older teenager involved working on an assembly line in a factory. This experience initiated a deep suspicion of technology. My earliest sculptures in school used objects thrown out by that factory, and were recreated to symbolize the dehumanizing effects of technology. Though skeptical of technology I must acknowledge the value I place on the "jetsam" I seek for my work and the optimism inherent in giving it new meaning. The process becomes a "selection of rejection" and manipulated for recognition and misrecognition. I hope to bring to the work the familiarity of the objects to the audience and their personal histories associated and shared with it. I’m not a neo-Luddite and am throughly enmeshed with technology, hyper aware of "man’s hubris" as my own and the consequences of my art’s larger carbon footprint despite my passion of recycling and subverting landfill. Much of the collection of materials is also donated by friends and supporters and inclusive to the process.
I have leaned heavily on the history of assemblage, ready-mades and the found object. Perhaps it was spending too many years in the developing world where waste is mostly utilized, or too many years here in Canada where it isn’t, but I’ve always had an innate and acute disdain for what the developed world calls "waste." As a result, "used" objects have been at the core of my work for the last three decades. Some pieces start from discarded images or objects, chosen crow-like from dumps and dumpsters. I have found there’s nothing like garbage picking to ward off the glorification of middle class ideals. I’m almost never sure what I’ll find. Mostly I seek objects to mesh with ideas that have already hatched, or things with which I feel an instant and intrinsic connection. I love the challenge the constraints of the material place on the medium, each piece requires a unique, often arduous manipulation to realize its potential of transformation from mass production to labour intense, hand made art.
My circuit board paintings arose from working as a computer sales consultant back in the early 1990's. I was appalled at the computer’s speed of redundancy and was determined to extend its life. My son was born around that time and after I would come home from work and put him to bed, I would head to the studio and start to work. I painted the night scape because that was the landscape I saw. Working late in my studio I could always place myself as one of the "ignited" lights in the painting. After much trial and error, I discovered that by painting the circuit board, and re-igniting the circuits, I could create a landscape that appealed to the subjective and objective view. Over time, I created traffic and lightning and other features that played with the metaphors associated with circuit boards and power. . The work was more in the realm of the aesthetic, but I found the idea of making landscape beauty out of landfill components appealing. The circuit board, to me, is the perfect contemporary "canvas" or "platform". It is such an integral part of the global village and contained in so many of our consumer goods that we rely upon to stay "connected" or "consumed".
The used object is just the foothold for my interrogation of understanding. It is not so much about re-cycling as it is about a poetic re-contextualizing of object and idea. It is similar geography and architecture to urban topography as well as the connection to the circuitry of the mind enhance its intrinsic metaphoric value.
I am endlessly translating and updating my inner visual language into visual art. My art is an outlet and a way of documenting ideas, concepts and the designs of my inner world: designs which are synthesized from my experience in the realities of the outer world. I move back and forth between acute consciousness and instinct.
Everything I encounter presents possibilities for my art. Everything has potential. Any and all objects can be used to create something, to make and re-make what I find in the world. The process requires searching for the materials that will commit me to original work, and intimately connect me to a self-engendered vision. The objects or images I contend with are not necessarily the art, but they always function as the language to serve the idea. There is a recognition or re-cognition of the materials to assist in generating a versatile, multi-layered narrative. My intention is to put things together in a way that moves the senses, and creates vivid, compelling, infectious imagery. Often I count on confusing cultural assumptions and re-contextualizing consumer objects to give them new meaning.
One of my first jobs as an older teenager involved working on an assembly line in a factory. This experience initiated a deep suspicion of technology. My earliest sculptures in school used objects thrown out by that factory, and were recreated to symbolize the dehumanizing effects of technology. Though skeptical of technology I must acknowledge the value I place on the "jetsam" I seek for my work and the optimism inherent in giving it new meaning. The process becomes a "selection of rejection" and manipulated for recognition and misrecognition. I hope to bring to the work the familiarity of the objects to the audience and their personal histories associated and shared with it. I’m not a neo-Luddite and am throughly enmeshed with technology, hyper aware of "man’s hubris" as my own and the consequences of my art’s larger carbon footprint despite my passion of recycling and subverting landfill. Much of the collection of materials is also donated by friends and supporters and inclusive to the process.
I have leaned heavily on the history of assemblage, ready-mades and the found object. Perhaps it was spending too many years in the developing world where waste is mostly utilized, or too many years here in Canada where it isn’t, but I’ve always had an innate and acute disdain for what the developed world calls "waste." As a result, "used" objects have been at the core of my work for the last three decades. Some pieces start from discarded images or objects, chosen crow-like from dumps and dumpsters. I have found there’s nothing like garbage picking to ward off the glorification of middle class ideals. I’m almost never sure what I’ll find. Mostly I seek objects to mesh with ideas that have already hatched, or things with which I feel an instant and intrinsic connection. I love the challenge the constraints of the material place on the medium, each piece requires a unique, often arduous manipulation to realize its potential of transformation from mass production to labour intense, hand made art.
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