Joshua Dov Levy

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

While generating my work, I process information concerning my physical and mental actions through my mind. At the same point I keep working infinitely during time as a result of never appearing to stop thinking. Even at a time of repose the fact that I seem to ponder I am receiving no information which proves that I truly am existing in the system around me.

My physical and metaphysical forms give birth to relations between the two; as a result my individual voice is created (my life). This constant flow of life pushes me to work with the language of art as it exists in current society, to create a connection between many voices (people), as we seem to head closer to globalization of society. I look to the language of art to help dictate my actions in relation to the perceivable field of the senses.

Decisions on what medium I work in has a direct relation in my body of work. In all my projects I play with dualities within the semiotics of language to address questions of life and death. The philosophy of my work however is not so clear on one level for I feel there to be numerous levels to any question. I ask my viewer to absorb information enabling me to somehow speak to them in the visual form of art.
Material is a very strong issue in my projects. Metal, wood, dirt, grass, flies, bug spray, light bulbs, paint, grease, plastic, newspapers, bodies, sound, touch . . . all mix together to mentally and visually compose a system of knowledge. I use some materials loaded with history while playing off other materials that are not metaphorically charged. The language of art grants me this privilege of speaking to the world. A matrix is composed and decomposed while being supported physically and mentally by one concrete environment.

My hanging flesh paintings socialize with the floor they were created on, simultaneously as the two of them formulate their own space. The space is at first closed to the viewer, with a voyeuristic feel to it. Although, by hanging paintings off the wall I send a sign that this is open for whoever wants to investigate. The information is stripped away leaving only the meat of the question for people to absorb. Many images are overlapped absolving the semantics of the facts. By toiling with these issues the self is accepted and rejected as the focal point of this piece.
I play with the notion of what is art and how does art relate to its anima. For most people art can be anything tangible within its own system, but there must be more. I ask the question what is painting, sculpture, installation . . . and so on. The list of signifiers could go on for as long as we attempt to define art. There is no beginning and there will be only one end to these projects, everything else is transition.