Anthony Vega

Denotations / Merged Projects
These are two separate projects that are part of the After Party Exhibition 
 
Merged 
 
I have been thinking a
lot about polarities. It
seems most of us have.
I was listening to the
radio about a year ago
and heard a few times
within a couple weeks,
this idea of a double-edged sword, or this idea that two views were “conjoined twins”. I wondered why the metaphors to these links are violent or super complex, very rare and potentially dangerous relationships. In a way its a completely true metaphor, but one that does not breed much confidence for a safe solution.
 
Sometimes we have these deeply conflicting views around two ideas that share incredible similarites, like Venn diagrams. Take our relationship to place and the environment. We have a “place at the table”, “don’t take my place in line”, “we love your place” etc. Place is super important and personal and something you generally do not want to lose. But environment is highly polarizing. Not only politically (climate change), but as an abstract concept. “This environment is all wrong”, “I cant think in this environment”, “this is a toxic environment”. Yet we cant have “place” without “environment”. We cant have “sunsets” unless we can have tough conversations around the “kitchen table”. 
 
I made a “merged” painting of a #sunset and a #kitchentable.
 
I had similar thoughts around the ideas of deceit and hypocrisy. It occurs to me that one is a direct and intentional lie and the other is an inconsistency in a belief. I wonder which is more damaging, or meaningless. It turns out Octopuses are very popular during the pandemic. Thanks Netflix. They change color, they can shift shape, they can emulate rocks, they can lie, to protect themselves. Blue jays are majestic looking birds (what bird is not majestic, right?), but it turns out they can copy the sound a hawk makes. This is to scare other birds and protect themselves. Its interesting the role protection has in these acts. But is the blue jay being a hypocrite? Is the blue jay being untrue to itself? Does it matter? Is the octopus being inauthentic? I got to thinking of the octopus as the deceitful hypocrite and the blue jay as the hypocritical deceiver. 
 
I made a “merged” painting of an #octous and a #bluejay.

Denotations

I think an almost unhealthy amount about what things mean. That meaning can be a lot of things; fiction, truth, self-serving, wrong, idealized, radical, fluid. In our current state(s) it seems that denotations by themselves can become unstuck, or their descriptions alone are in flux, or at the very least not easily identifiable or reduced. 

I have never thought about fabric as much as I have in the past 19 months. The fashion and protection of masks, or the warmth provided by the blanket now available at the outdoor dining restaurant. I made two fabric pieces for this show. One from the fabric I used to try and sew my first mask and the second on a rather warm blanket that I bought at Ikea.

I combined these fabrics with shoes and sunglasses. Shoes take on a new meaning when you are outside all the time or when you don’t leave your house that much and sunglasses don’t need to do as much work to hide who you are in public since we are wearing masks all the time. Both objects really hold a lot of meaning and are fashion items but their denotations (the way we describe things) seem to have changed.