Jason Filipow Interview

Former Studio Number One designer and current freelance designer/artist Jason Filipow was nice enough to answer a few of my questions concerning his art, process, and upcoming projects.

Bleached Rectangles
From Jason’s Nonrepresentational Photographs Series, silver gelatin prints and pushpins, 72″ x 100″, 1995.

You had posted on theGiant.org forums that the three components that makes good design are: homage, syntax, and appropriation. Could you please expound on this and how you use it in your own work?

I believe that those are the key ingredients that generally inform good work; homage, syntax and appropriation . I think all creative people unknowingly, or unconsciously, use some form of all three, most of the time.

Homage is simple; no matter what your craft or trade, you must learn the history of that medium. Nobody creates within a vacuum. It’s impossible not to be influenced by who or what has been achieved prior, so it’s wise to always start by looking at the work of others. You’ll undoubtedly get ideas from that process alone. I think Rauschenberg’s ‘Erased DeKooning’ of 1953 in an interesting and unusual example of homage.

Syntax, is more complex. As I define it, syntax describes the literal or empirical qualities inherent to any given medium. Just as photography has multiple syntaxes, so does painting. Even music has many syntaxes. John Cage’s ’4’33′ is a challenging interpretation of syntax, as it uses two primary elements of music; sound and silence, and those comprise the form of the work.

Appropriation is a slippery slope; the line between appropriation and inspiration is often very thin and sometimes, undefinable. Within our postmodern context, appropriation is process of recontextualizing the familiar. This is typically done with the intent to expose or reinterpret something that may be well seen without being well known. Duchamp’s infamous ‘Ready Mades’ are great examples of appropriation. His act of taking commonplace objects and re-presenting them within the context of an art exhibition blazed a trail for generations to follow.

On your blog you often post about various printmaking methods and how you draw inspiration from these mediums, What about these processes interests you and where else do you find inspiration?

I believe that the thread that remains constant in all of my personal work, regardless of the medium, is content. And more specifically, the compulsion to deconstruct. This is tied directly to my fascination with syntax. I am always curious to understand the processes and techniques of how a particular medium can directly impact, or alter, the inherent meaning of any work of art. Just as learning a new technique or a new process is inspiring, I also think that simple, raw materials can be inspiring, too. The mind is led to wander via imagination and that is always a challenging, and sometimes rewarding, place to operate.

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