Nick Vest: Two Distinct, Art Objects, 2021
My work is often not communicative of anything precise. To me there are usually better ways to share an idea than to make a piece of art specifically to do so, and usually there are better decisions to be made about a piece of work during making and presentation than those that need to be made to preserve cut and clarity of what it is being communicated. When I do make a work around something specific I think is worth saying to the people who will be listening to it I do my best to step away from the interaction after preparing both sides. To me it would be really silly to go through the process of creating an artwork to communicate an idea to the relatively small and homogenous audience that I have just to undercut it and write the idea on the wall. Failures for me with works like this don’t happen when a person walks away not knowing for sure what I wanted them to be thinking about, but when they walk away believing the work had nothing to say. The arrangement pictured here was shown in the Sanbao Ceramic Valley Art Museum and is part of a growing body of work begun in 2020.
Two Distinct, Art Objects, 2021, Water Jet Cut Porcelain tiles in the likeness of pages from The Shahnama, gold luster, bent glass in the shape of the words “racism” and “cancer”, argon gas, wood, latex paint, antique folk pottery likely early 20th century, factory porcelain vase, hand painted porcelain vase, extension cord, 72” x 56” x 8” dimensions variable
