Lindsay Wraga
Caught in the Act, 2010, acrylic on inkjet print, 10"x7.5"
Sport Team Portrait, 2010, acrylic on inkjet print, 6.5"x10"
Artist Statement
My recent paintings describe and illustrate a parallel world that is overcrowded and teetering on the brink of disaster. The work is premised on the act of painting human interactions and relationships on a micro versus macro scale. The images function as a prediction or projection of events that could occur, i.e. the apocalypse of 2012 before and after, sexual and/or violent fantasies, prison stripes becoming the new black, and Where’s Waldo gone wrong.
The changes in the current social landscape due to the increasing use of social networking sites, reality TV, and 24-hour breaking news coverage, have caused the boundaries between public and private spheres to blur. Through an accumulation of figures, pattern, and collage, the public and private manifestations of sexuality, dark humor, vanity, and uniqueness are made visible. Visual accumulation, and the juxtaposition of various images and image sources, is used as a metaphor for the contradictions of depicting human struggle, which is in turn defined by polarities. Through the combination of imagery, my intention is for the paintings to become signifiers for the human condition, and a space to contemplate individual roles in relation to the masses.