Relevance, 35th Anniversary Exhibition II
Transient Machinations
As an artist, I find it helpful to use my work as a means to explore, examine, and rationalize difficult concepts. Transient Machinations focuses on the transfer of thought and memory over symbolic and actual distance. I focus on the lingering calls from home along with the complexities of nostalgic imagery and the feelings tied to those relationships. I intend to use this work as means to create a visual narrative from the coalescing of personal imagery, memory, and an oral story telling tradition.
I use a combination of woodcuts, historic photographs from the Alabama archive, family photographs, and printed repetitive structures in my work. The use of antiquated imagery of boats and their associated activities serve as symbolic or metaphorical stand-ins for myself and my experiences. I analyze the inherent purpose of a ship and juxtapose it against personal imagery to create a narrative for my viewer based upon their relationship brought about by layering. I place colloquial imagery and family photos using a chemical transfer method on my backgrounds. This allows me to revisit places or relationships that were a part of my upbringing. I print repetitive forms and shapes with detailed diagrams over my objects and landscapes. These forms and diagrams are a nod to my continued struggle with obsessive-compulsive thoughts and fixations. In the same way a ship carries people, I use these pieces as a means to bridge the emotional and actual space I am thinking about. This work is an attempt to confront or come to peace with these convoluted feelings.
John Klosterman is a full-time instructor in Drawing and Foundations. He is a native of Daphne, Alabama. He attended the University of South Alabama, where he earned a BFA in Printmaking. He then attended the University of Alabama as a graduate teaching assistant and earned his MFA.
Growing up, he developed a fondness for machines and all the tinkering that came along with them. His love of tinkering now takes on a two-dimensional form as he transfers ink to paper. Instead of the turn of a wrench, it is now the carving of a block with a gouge. Layers of each print, much like parts to a car, are assembled in a manner that creates a functioning vehicle for the message of each piece.
Monotype and woodcut on duck cloth
20 x 48 in.
John uses his work as a means for a thorough self-examination. The use of family photographs and memories affords him the opportunity to derive meaning from his upbringing in the rural backwoods of Alabama into an artist. He uses vintage inspired iconography as a reflection on his own surroundings growing up as a child raised by his grandparents. John realized that while he may not work amongst engines and diagrams still, he now surrounds himself with his own structures. Just like the never-ending cycle of upkeep on machinery, He consistently plys his trade into each piece of art in search of some form of rigid idealization. Johns goal is to know if he has built his own “vessel” to plan.
Space One Eleven Involvement: Teaching Artist 2021