Having found myself previously embedded in theories based in traditionalism and the history of painting, I became lost in the idea of the transcendent image. This “goal” is, in my research, a commonality between many painters throughout history, all searching for a moment of aesthetic perfection that transports them beyond the everyday, the mundane, and the human. Whether this venture be to liberate myself spiritually or only to fulfill some internal craving for satisfaction via aesthetic execution, it has consumed my practice. The digital world allows so many opportunities for me to go beyond my physical limitations, depicting visual illusions that are otherwise impossible for myself to create physically, creating colors that cannot and will never be depicted organically, and adapting flat space to become layered and spatial.

Working in vivid, digitally enhanced colors, I fuse layered and mediated cultural data, creating “new space”, simultaneously decomposing and self-constructing. I constantly accept and question my power in the creation of these images and videos, attempting to maintain some semblance of classical structure, enhancing their mythic and physically nonexistent qualities, while simultaneously pushing to make an entirely new image. These augmented experiences range from chaotic abstractions, spiraling into a deep-flat space to moving images depicting space that has yet to be discovered; elaborate animations of cultural noise, seizing with time.

Although working largely in digital media, I still maintain a belief that these experiences act similarly to paintings, densely layered, rich in projected surface quality, and built upon a rich history that is embedded in the precepts of formal issues. This search allows me to constantly experiment, building an image from nothing, not knowing where the image will begin or end, but always looking towards a resolution that simultaneously appears somehow fresh and invitingly familiar.

-Brian J. Hettler