Artist Statement:

More than Words uses the language of film, TV and popular culture to explore modern notions of romance and tragedy as well as the depiction of gender. It takes the visual perfection of advertising as an analogy for our quest for an ideal state of being. The collages solidify the most instant and passing experience of consumerism trapping what is by its very nature throw-away, and repositioning it as the raw material for something new. In this way it re-appropriates recognisable imagery, subverting its intended meaning

This series looks at how the images that surround us ‘speaks’ to us. By removing the images from their original context alongside slogans which give them a certain meaning we can now see how they ‘talk’ to us about our common humanity and our need to reach out and touch something that is shared in our experience of the world.

More than Words is a critique of contemporary consumer culture and commodity fetishism. It interrogates and explores the depiction of the human condition through the prism of advertising and mass media. Both placing work as intervention in advertising space and taking found images to create re-interpretations of this experience in gallery space.

My work deals with the fragmented nature of imagery in contemporary media where hackneyed cliché has replaced the genuine experiences the pictures once represented, twisted by the need to create the desire to consume.

Click here to go to Paul Stanley’s Website

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TALKING CITY is Anna Francis’ Longhouse Guest Editor project, for March 2010.

Click here to go to the project page.