Joe Hedges - Experiments
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Statement
Through scavenging for discarded objects–the handles of hair dryers, plastic toys, frayed wires, rocks and plant parts, empty containers–and rearranging them into new configurations I attempt to re-imbue decommissioned objects with a new sense of function and meaning. Inspired by the burgeoning field of Object Oriented Ontology and motivated by a lifelong interest in collecting thrift-store electronics, I am interested in questions regarding human relationship to technology and the natural world. How do individuals and groups imbue objects with meaning? What kinds of objects qualify as meaning-containers? These images attempt to make electronic materials more corporeal as our devices become more networked, more ubiquitous and thus more invisible in the information age.
“In the paintings, digital prints, and sculptures by Joe Hedges, we see the hybridization of natural and technological objects, united and interacting in often humorous, often contemplative ways. Hedges’ solutions ask us to examine our embedded relationship with nature and how–but more importantly why–we meddle.”
– A. Fortes
AntiPatterns: Paintings, Prints and Sculpture by Joe Hedges, Solo Exhibition Gallery 2, Washington State University, September 2015
“Hedges’s still lives remix familiar objects to give them an Alzheimer’s-like strangeness”
– Michael Anthony Farley, Artfcity.com, This Weeks’ Must See Events: We Are Not in Basel