craig

Artist Statement

  1. I am interested in the sounds of inscription made from drawing and writing
  2. I believe everyone has one My idea rests on a question: Where does writing end and drawing begin?
  3. Robert Ashley is the most important artist to me in any medium.
  4. Jackson Pollock has been quoted saying he felt he had no skin. I’ve never been able to view his drip paintings without thinking of them as a nervous system exposed.
  5. My work attempts to expose the nervous system.
  6. In 2011, I fortuitously learned about The Language Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia where the focus is on communication between human and non-human primates.
  7. There I met Panzee, a language-trained chimpanzee who has an extraordinary ability to write (a hidden language possibly). Thus altering the context and content of my work.
  8. The work submitted here represents work coming from this relationship.
  9. My (and our) closest physical contact with Panzee are her writings.
  10. I copy Panzee’s marks just like one would copy characters to learn, internalize, metabolize any other language.
  11. I believe in this quote by Austin Osman Spare: ‘Art can contradict Science’
  12. Panzee was born in captivity on December 31, 1985. This is the date of Janus looking forward and backward in time. A duality also extended perhaps between the human and non-human realities.
  13. Panzee died this year on February 9, 2014. She was 28 years old. She was filmed performing trials her entire life. Two days before she passed she was filmed doing a writing. This was her last recorded document.
  14. Arnulf Rainer was the last Expressionist. Henri Michaux was the last Surrealist. I find myself thinking about this often.
  15. My greatest mistake I have made as an artist was choosing the lunatic fringe as my primary audience.
  16. The most defining and significant choice I have made as an artist was choosing the lunatic fringe as my primary audience.