MN LS
2007-2009
Ink on panel
6.5 x 5 inches
I used the image search button from an older version of the Google toolbar as the basis for this image. I really liked how the Mona Lisa was crushed down so incredibly small and yet still retained a clear resemblance. So I guess this image is a lot about seeing and how much of seeing is made up for by our sensory apparatus as well as our visual memory. That’s what a lot of the pixel work is about; the painterliness of it.
I built the image out of a “scaffolding” of the grid and dividing lines I usually use to build my foundational drawings for the pixel images. I meant it as a reinforcement of my beliefs regarding the function of line in visual language. Line is the skeleton upon which we hang things like value or color and, further down the line, meaning.
As for the title, I was hoping to make a comment on the similarities that line and value in visual language have with consonants and hard sounds in language (at least the English language, pardon my anglo-centrism!). In order to recognize images or words, it seems to me that, respectively, lines and consonants have more to do with facilitating our understanding than do color and vowels. Color and vowels are the bells and whistles, I think.
I mean to make a companion piece about color and vowels someday, but I procrastinate since it’s pretty uber-conceptual according to my proclivities as an artfart.
©Ashley Anderson
