Jason Seeley
SUNY University of Buffalo

Bridge
Acrylic, resin and spray-paint on canvas
48" x 48"

The island has had a metaphorical existence everywhere from literature to microbiology, as a symbol for both isolation and uniqueness. It is a place in which one exists, on one hand, in a state of complete freedom; free from governed rules to construct his/her world and behave in it how he/she sees fit. On the other hand it is an existence of complete imprisonment, constantly susceptible to the challenges of survival. In this way the line between freedom and imprisonment begins to dismantle, and one actually becomes the other. I see this as a mirror to life within our own culture. We as a society are constantly juxtaposed between our attempts to stabilize our lives and our desire to transgress the banalities of our day-to-day existence. We erect psychological barriers of our own construction and then attempt to escape them.

The act of painting functions in a similar way. As artists have proven time and again, paint can do anything. It could be said that with all other mediums the material with which you work provides the artist with a ground of meaning. Not painting. In this way it is complete freedom, but yet it is restricted. It is completely bound by the fact that it cannot hold any alternative function outside the realm of painting. It can mimic function, mimic life. We can choose to acknowledge its paint-ness or choose to use it as a platform on with to participate in other dialogues. However the function of painting must always exist metaphysically.