Chandra Cerrito Contemporary
The driving force behind my work is exploring perceptual experience and the Cambiata Figure and Blind Alley paintings I’ve completed over the last few years have grown out of this interest. Important to that end is that the work requires a particular time and space involvement on the part of the viewer. This is coupled with treating the painting as both a receptacle of visual information drawn from myriad, and purposely disparate, sources and as a three-dimensional object embodying color, surface and syncopated energy.
The title “Cambiata Figure“ comes from a Baroque musical term that describes
notes that interrupt and suspend the resolution of a melody. In recent research
by Dr. Diana Deutsch, professor of psychology at the University of California,
San Diego, she used the Cambiata melody to illustrate paradoxes pertaining to the perception and memory of sound and music. Her research found that what we believe to be the origins and direction of a sound or upper and lower melody of a piece of music is always “interpreted” by the brain, often contradicting the actual direction and or source of those sounds or melodies. I found these results to be a fitting metaphor for the type of perceptual and aesthetic interests I’m bringing to my painting.
The sources for the collage work in the Cambiata Figure paintings reference a
certain “root” in cultural and societal experience. The material comes from magazine, book and photo sources and range from architecture, legal or financial documents, to random imagery from unknown photographers and magazines. These elements are “degraded” by virtue of either being mechanically shredded or cut up by other means. This material is put to the service of the painting and speaks of a metamorphosis of intent. By transforming rather common media information the material gains a new purpose within the painting, while not altogether abandoning the reference to its original use. In a real sense, the collage material becomes a “color” within the palette, similar, but not the same, as the paint itself. In combination with the other color and surfaces within the painting, an almost musically rhythmic experience is created.
In both series, the lack of a singular viewing vantage point is an important component. In the Cambiata Figure paintings I have chosen to elongate the diptych to a wide proportion, making necessary an active participation on the part of the viewer. By requiring the viewer to engage in both a distant (in order to view the entire 8 foot length) and more intimate viewing proximity (to consider subtle surface nuance and imagery) I am asking that the work be considered in a real time/space action. The painting requires multiple readings, which ultimately requires memory to be the glue to its fullest understanding.
