Like a crate of old vinyl contains samples for a music producer to rearrange into a chopped-and-screwed creation, a stack of magazines and paper ephemera from yesteryear serve as the palette for BBASS' mixed media work. Combining this collage style with elements of typography gives each composition a message that attempts to unite the visual subject matter and communicate an idea that goes beyond the original intent of the 1950's advertisements, newsprint, and illustrations employed in the designs.
An avid wordsmith and graphic designer, the artist's goal is to create images that elicit a visceral response immediately but also convey a sense of ambivalence and ambiguity through the use of unusual phraseology and wordplay. Unlike communication design, which requires that a specific message be delivered to a specific audience, BBASS' work is intended to generate curiosity and lead viewers down several avenues of interpretation.
BRANDON BASS
MIXED MEDIA ARTIST
EXHIBITIONs
2011 - PRESENT
930 Art Center
University of Louisville Hite Art Gallery
Revelry Boutique Gallery
Public Gallery
The Art Store
Tim Faulkner Gallery
Jewish Community Center
Water Tower Art Museum
Open Gallery
Forest Giant
The Mammoth
Art Sanctuary
The Siegenheim
Squallis Puppeteers
St. Francis High School
“As a young cratedigger, I spent a lot of time hunting through boxes of old vinyl at the peddler’s mall, looking for any records interesting or bizarre enough to warrant a fifty cent purchase. After seeing the same album artwork dozens of times in this search, I became aware of a certain design trope popular in classical and jazz LPs of the 1950s in which the top portion of the 12” x 12” album was white with minimal text and the remainder of the composition included a colorful, kinetic arrangement of shapes and images. I was always drawn to this style for its balance of type and graphic elements, a magnetism that would ultimately drive me toward a career in communication design.
That in mind, I soon developed a love for vintage advertising, too. Not only was I fascinated by layouts designed to capture attention, I was also drawn to the allure of happy people and products that promised to make life better. In homage, elements from 1950s magazines serve as the palette for the work seen here. However, much like a hip-hop music producer uses tiny samples from older songs to create a totally new composition, my aim is to borrow small bits from varied sources and re-purpose them in a way that gives them life far beyond the original intent of the pages from which they were taken.
This idea of shifting context served as the spark to create my own imagined album art, each paired with our language’s most controversial words, four letter ones.
Another factor that changes with context is the strangely powerful sense of nostalgia. The warm, fuzzy feeling you experience when reminiscing is a natural human response that can trigger confidence, generosity, and inspire optimism about the future. The dated attire, technology, and decor seen throughout this body of work are meant to help evoke memories and inspire connections between the work and the viewer. In creating each piece, as I explore materials contemporary to my parents and grandparents, I too encounter an extraordinary feeling of time-travel; sentimentality for an era in which I wasn’t even alive. To capture today's zeitgeist in art, nostalgia plays an important role because the constant change we experience now creates a steady, collective desire to look back on our shared past—even if that past is only one very different year ago.”
FOUR LTTR WRDS
ARTIST STATEMENT
Opening of FOUR LTTR WRDS at Revelry Boutique Gallery in Louisville, KY