Three Years at BAT

Three Years at BAT
by Jonathan Fischer

Entrance Hall and Atrium of Brooklyn Army Terminal
Building "B"
140 58th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11220

September 20th 2013 -  March 18th, 2014

Three Years at BAT is an ongoing show of paper collages and posters spanning three years of design exploration while a studio artist at chashama's Brooklyn Army Terminal Location.

From the artist:

I started the profiles as a collage series 44 years ago while I was a student in Rome at Palazzo Cenci. The basis of this work, pattern on pattern, references sources as various as the ukiyo-e of Utamaro and the dynamic pattern conflicts in the apparel designs of Rudi Gurnreich.

I’ve attempted to stage a figure-ground confrontation between opposing patterns. This is a fugue of colors, or scale, or rhythms or all three. It is frequently resolved (or not) by the introduction of a mediating element, either line, pattern, color mass, or pictorial image.

Sometimes implied is the tension between the interior and exterior world, inside and out, the soul and the cosmos, the me and the not-me. Private and public, what is & is not known. Sometimes I just want to juxtapose the partnership of Prosciutto & Melon, versus Ume & Chiso.

Discovery was the only intention as I began the work. These collages are simply semaphores. They lead the viewer into metaphor. They trigger associations, cue sense memories, and evoke emotion. I continue to make these groupings for no reason other than the pleasure that the process brings. The process helps me chart my position in the universe.