Land scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
Carol Elkovich
Lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA
An artist ' s statement
W
hether Fibonacci spirals, scientific theories of disorganized complexity,
or the architecture of habitat’ s nature has long been a primary source for erudition in both art and science.
Recent maps charting social networks on the digital frontier take the visual quality of plant root structures, especially rhizomes. A rhizome is a stem of a plant that spreads by sending shoots to multiple points of self-replicating nodes. The interconnection of the rhizome negates hierarchy and represents a kind of democratic interconnectivity, very similar to the accessible and creative systems of living in a digital age. I find it interesting to see abstract processes mirroring physical designs seen in nature.
My work lets these ideas and symbols collide into evocative patterns that I see as a kind of geography of thought. Borrowing from maps of social networks, the invading patterns of virus behavior or the comportment of swarming insects, and simply the shapes of leaves and petals fallen to the ground— I am interested in disorganized complexity as a prominent overlay to the rational constructions of contemporary life. I strive for associations layered into a collective visual image that asks for contemplation of the structures shaping our knowledge, our relationships, or memories, and our physical experiences.
Carol Elkovich