Madeline Vaccaro

Untitled
Inkjet prints, MDF, maple, stoneware, porcelain, acrylic, house paint
installation, variable size

Looking to sources such as Robert Nozick’s thought experiment The Experience Machine, Las Vegas, and the names given to house paints, I am curious to know more about how we make sense of our lives using familiar material and imagery to skew ordinary perceptions and expectations. How do spectacle and human-made objects construct fantasy and alternate realities? Through the manipulation of tactile materials such as wood and ceramics, I investigate how spectacle and the human-made can be useful tools for understanding our lives. I utilize both two and three-dimensional collage for this investigation: making objects, photographing them, printing them, combining them physically and digitally- an object is rarely touched once.

Motivated by a severe curiosity and empathy for people, I am continuously observing how we react to utility, play, comfort, and how we make meaning in our lives. How two things can come together, how they relate, is demonstrated not only by the arrangement of elements, but also through titles. Works in my series a flat object, in particular such as On your level, or I do like it, I like the idea, imply a conversation. Other relationships between object and image, two and three-dimensions, are references to set and diorama designs, and other types of environment-building. My work is often built from these multiples: we understand our world by taking in fragments and forming a larger picture of the whole, there is not one answer to most questions and iteration can be one means to a solution.