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  • Fragmentation - David Davies
  • I am a multi-media artist, but in the area of drawing, fragmentation in a narrative sense has become a substantial part of the way I discover subject matter.

    I have always been attracted to the idea of the 'vignette'. A snatched but illuminating glimpse of a story whose beginning and end I could only guess at. In a literary sense, the extremely short stories of Raymond Carver would serve as an obvious analogy.

    To draw on another literary comparison, the 'cut up' technique also fascinates me in its surprising word combinations and often surreal juxtapositions of imagery thrown up by chance.

    I try to use a combination of these methods visually. Not so much in a collage of ready made images, but more in the sense of combining imagery I have made from collected ideas. Often ideas that may seem completely un-associated suddenly come together to provide that slightly un-worldly fragment of a narrative that again I could only guess at.

    But like most art work produced by seemingly serendipitous methods, the sub-conscious is always at work. The selective process inherent in anything an artist makes inevitably brings the work onto another level, and infuses it with recognisable references and issues. I treat these references like the pins that hold the whole idea together and save it from drifting into complete fantasy.

    For me, the individual elements within the drawing have to hold a possibility of reality. I always want the 'other worldly' quality that I seek to spring from surprising juxtapositions, and hope that these would be suggestive of some kind of narrative in the mind of the viewer. I tend to abandon anything that starts looking too consciously 'sci-fi'.

    In this area of my art work, I need to be as surprised by what I create as much as anyone else that may see it. It's that 'internal travel' experience of not knowing what's around the next corner that keeps me enthralled by the whole process of making art.


    Biographical information

    David Davies
    david.davies@ymail.com
    www.daviddavies.org.uk

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