OUT OF CONTEXT: An Experiment in Chaotic Art by Davi Barker

Opening Reception Friday, June 3, 7:00 to 9:00 pm

Exhibit Schedule: Fri. June 3 -Tue. June 28, 2011

M- F 12- 5:30 pm, Sat. 10 am - 1 pm or by appointment

In his exhibit “Out of Context: An Experiment in Chaotic Art,” artist and columnist Davi Barker uses enhanced collage to deconstruct media images of Islam and world events, creating colorful kaleidoscopic arrays of images that play with apparent chaos while suggesting hidden patterns of order.

“As a Muslim, I don’t believe that true chaos exists. I see apparent chaos as an opportunity to witness the signs of God in the natural world. The modern world, especially the information age, is the most pregnant manifestation of chaos, constantly erupting into dazzling disorder. Much of the impact is more subconscious than conscious. I try to strike the viewer there, in the chaos created in the mind. I select images, headlines, and blocks of text from magazines and newspapers and I scramble them, ripping images from their context, breaking grammar and syntax, and I begin to reassemble them randomly. If a pattern emerges, I will foster it, but I am careful not to direct it. The result is a soup of the words and images we are bombarded with everyday, but with no narrative, which forces the viewer to grapple with them subconsciously. Any message the viewer interprets in the composition is a projection of their own mind, not mine because I have divorced the process from my conscious influence. It emerges from the chaos…. Where chaos offers an opportunity to find meaning in the urban environment, solitude represents the return to meaning in the natural world..”

All are welcome. No special attire is required at ICCNC events.