Interchange, 2013
Love Songs is about relationships as seen through the filter of pop culture. These works use collaged ephemera, such as romance novels, fifties pin ups, and men’s health magazines to explore society’s fantasies and fascination with romance. Cracco is interested in the way these pulp publications highlight society’s dreams of “the perfect partner,” and the stereotypes used by the media to portray the sexes with regard to love and romance.
On a formal level the works use abstract space as a tool to express the emotional state of romantic relationships. The images draw inspiration from astronomy and partial physics. Star clusters and celestial skyscapes are abstracted to represent the macro view of how society expects relationships to be, while abstractions of partials or atoms represent a more micro or personal perspective; thus creating constellations that act as a metaphor for the forces that attract or repel couples.
Derek Cracco is Associate Professor of printmaking and computer graphics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He received an MFA from Syracuse University in 1999 and a BFA from Louisiana State University in 1996. Cracco has been recognized for his innovative combination of traditional printmaking processes and computer graphics. His work has been purchased by several museums and by many private collections throughout the country and abroad.
