Pink Parameters

michael-sjostedt-q

Michael Sjostedt: “Pink Parameters”
7-30 September 2017

Constraints in creativity. It sounds counter-intuitive, but what happens when parameters are intentional tools in an artistic process?

Collage artist Michael Sjostedt worked within self-imposed and pre-determined limitations, forcing experimentation that led to unexpected inspiration. The artist relegated his source material and subject matter: scrap paper, wintage vellum, packing tape. These types of ordinary, overlooked objects have aesthetic and emotional limitations in art: they’re usually perceived as ugly and boring to the point of invisibility. And why pink as a thematic anchor? While often associated with freedom or frivolity, the colour also has strict–and charged–social and cultural representations: sensitivity, femininity, sexuality.

An arbitrary combination at first glance, the experiment soon became a challenge. It pushed Sjostedt to question perceptions of boundaries throughout the creative process:

Are restrictions opportunities?
Is experimentation limiting?
Is paralysis of choice the real enemy of creativity?
Do we give obstacles too much, or the wrong kind, of power?

Working with artistic restrictions is not new. Yet reframing how to think about and work within constraints offered the artist a fresh perspective of what’s possible – no matter what the obstacle.

(adapted from the artist’s press materials)


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Image:
Q
by Michael Sjostedt
5″x5″
scrap paper, vintage vellum, magazine clipping, tape
2017
Courtesy of the artist