Hayden's Statement

Recently I have been exploring the unnoticed relationship between materiality and location in relation to human beings. Through surface and appearance of inanimate objects, we begin to associate certain specific connotations with the outer shells of what we see directly in front of us. But what if these shells represent and exist as nothing more than a distraction from reality? Slowly our reluctance to accept the artificial as a stand in for the real begins to dissolve, and we grow to crave the artificial representation, rather than the actual existence that is being referenced. As the artificial wears away and crumbles, we must ask ourselves what then happens to our perception of the real? Does it decay with the shell? This body of work aims to bring attention to the artificial shell present within our everyday lives, and highlight how it begins to overtake our unconscious understanding of ourselves and the world around us. / / / A tragic comedy lurks within my consciousness. It is the condition that we are all existing in. The condition that swallows us all up. The condition that has an unending appetite. / / / I was recently speaking with a friend and he was talking about how miserably sad and lonely life is as a whole. How even the ability to relate to those around us is a fetal attempt at a finite goal that will not last. Nor is it worth the effort and strain we put into it. To me, it was almost the exact opposite. Rather than see the normally forced and concise interactions that make up our day to day lives as lonely distractions from loneliness itself, I feel as though while I am teetering on the fence between tragedy and comedy, I am seeing more and more humor in the tragedy of life. Of course, this isn't quite a "lol" humor, this is the humor that causes you to laugh when you hear of an unexpected death, or when you find out that the pastor of your church was found just outside in the parking lot, receiving oral sex from one of the children's choir members. It is the humor that exists only as a result of ones sheer disgust with what they are surrounded by, and by the blatant absurdity that sniffs out the pastor, and has its way with every member of his or her family. / / / (the first part of this has been my statement for probably about 5 or 6 months. this writing was fairly rushed, and i plan to extend on it much more)