Mark Khaisman: INTRAspective
9.10.2009 - 11.7.2009

I work on an illuminated easel, applying layers of translucent brown packing tape onto clear Plexiglas panels. The tape is used as a direct way of manipulating the light. I treasure the alchemy whereby a commonplace material is transformed into a fine art medium.

My technique involves layering and intersecting; while engaging the process, I am contemplating on the layering and intersecting of universal and personal meanings and memories. People react to my tapes because it talks to them on many levels, starting from the very basic level of tactile feeling – almost everyone has held this tape in their hands, and is familiar with the sensation of striking a line with it. Many may almost feel it and hear the sound of adhesive being pulled off the roll. I build on that experience. I create images which are as familiar as the material itself. My tape work is about recognition: recognition of a tactile sensation, recognition of an image, recognition of a memory. Repetition of memory is the very essence of my work. When I work on an image, I try to keep it on the edge of almost falling apart, so that the eye of a viewer is given the challenge and responsibility of assembling it into a recognizable form. After the first moment of visual recognition, the joy of a memory's recognition is able to come. That moment is where I desire the viewing experience to begin.

I am limiting my imagery to highly recognizable cultural icons: I appropriate images which have became classical in the context of various aspects of Western culture, and by doing so I highlight such issues as high and low culture, authorship and anonymity. My work differentiates timescales, as in the timelessness of the original versus the expediency of packing tape, and a phenomenon of presence as the inherence of prototypes within the tape images.

-Mark Khaisman