John Graeter
Statement
In my art, I explore the metaphysics of linguistics and relations of the ideas and mechanics of spoken and written language. You could say much of my work is meta-painting, or paintings about the act of painting words and language. You could also say it is meta-art, or an expression about the act of creating art and writing together. Though much of the content of each painting looks like written words, calligraphy or Arabic lettering, all of it is scribbles and wild play with morphemes as motifs.
My work is spontaneous, humorous, political and multi-layered in composition and conceptualization. I use mostly Sumi Ink and Acrylic for mediums, but also found objects or recycled trash to create 2-D Dadaist combines and meta-linguistic reflections about the world around and inside of me. I am inspired from looking out my window and seeing a grey squirrel eating a banana peel on a neighbors front porch with a USPS truck on fire across the street.
In my paintings there exists qualities which words in a speech, dialogue or written form do: consonance, assonance, alliteration, allusion, rhythm, rhyme and metaphor. Most common is alliteration, or the occurance of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or connected words.
Taoist philosophy, Asian calligraphers, the Dadaist art movement, beat poetry, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, jazz, hip-hop and the raw ilk of urban and natural landscape all bear a heavy influence and source of inspiration for my art. The Taoists sense of balance, harmony and spontaneity; Dada’s spirit of absurdist, politically conscious, and experimental and free-associative production; and the beats, rhythms, rhymes and meters of jazz, prose and poetry with their instrumental dialogue and infinite, universal interpretations.
The significance is universal and the translation infinite. Paz, Dada Brains
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