Peace Phrases (Series)

Concept

Clint Imboden
Artist Statement

Association arises from material, particularly material with preexisting contexts. When working in found objects the manipulation of context becomes the true medium. Found-object art is contradictory, the discarded becoming precious, and it is through this contradiction, the implied “but”, that rhetoric is formed.

My work examines the way these inherited contexts are utilized socially and politically to construct the world we inhabit. My interest in both language and sociopolitical topics stem from a lifetime of working in community mental health, where decades of up close and personal experience led to pointed critique of the systems created to moderate, regulate, and maintain society.

I visit flea markets and estate sales almost daily, searching for objects that draw me in: old shoes, dusty rolling pins, rusty shovels, and other cast-offs. Through alteration, manipulation, and multiplication, these neglected items are transformed into sculptures and installations that interrogate and deconstruct unseen social truths.