Keelan Wackman, Artist’s statement 2008

I have always been interested in layers. I am intrigued by the layers of life in which we are all so embedded. Layers of human relationships and emotions, layers of mundane everyday responsibilities; work, family, pets.  Layers of nature and man made trappings, layers of stories and experiences. Sometimes these layers work in harmony, sometimes in opposition. My artistic process parallels the processes of life. It is messy and not predetermined. It considers both the parts and the whole. Layers are added and removed, altered and scrapped. Sometimes one layer obscures another almost entirely yet without the hidden layer the whole is not the same.  The piece changes depending on the light and the angle, the assumptions and context brought by the viewer. In this body of work I attempt to achieve a feeling of the complex and ethereal quality of our shared narrative as a human species.  These pieces are both highly personal and universal in their themes. I also create dry point etchings which are printed in very small editions, usually only 2- 6 prints. This is an attempt to remind myself that things do not always need to be so complicated, to unravel the script of our society that more is better. These plates then become layers in the more complex pieces, mimicking the fact of life that everything is in interaction with other things and can be viewed separately but doing so is really a falsified simplification.