These objects are by products of everything plastic, they are the plastic run before or after a hairbrush, juice bottle or chair is made. They represent everything and nothing. The plastic in its petroleum state has undergone millions of years of evolution to get to this stage. And then, it is discarded as a byproduct of societal needs.
John Dahlsen explores the duality of meaning and perception, and the illusion that is created in between. He presents an image of a non-object in a painting of an informal Formalist sculpture. His paintings form the profile of a solid sculpture, moulded and plied to present the essence of formalism. The subject of the paintings, exhibit abstract geometrical imagery and constructivist diagramming of space that is playfully organic and blob-like. Yet the work is a painting of these organic man-made blob sculptures. The work considers cycles and recycling in re-presenting paintings of sculptures that are inherently plastic fabricator machine end waste. The use of plastic materials and their place in the evolutionary motions of recycling are important to Dahlsen in constructing these images.
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