This Friday’s Feature artist is Lace Bassett!
Lace Bassett lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. He grew up, however, in a small town in Colorado. It was there that he met a local artist named Stewart Coutington Andrews whom he apprenticed with for many years. He painted with him every day after school, learning realistic oil painting techniques. Andrews encouraged Bassett to pursue art because he felt that art was a fulfilling way to understand and experience the world.
Lace Bassett writes:
When a child is first born it has no understanding of the boundaries that separates itself from the rest of the world. Once it gains this understanding it will spend the rest of its life separating the world into two categories, “Mine and yours.” The human race has been doing this for thousands of years and has developed complex systems by which to parcel out every inch of land, gallon of water, and molecule of air. These systems are illustrated and understood as line. These lines are no more visible than God and likewise require a certain level of “faith.” But factors like propaganda, lack of accurate information, mistranslation, social perception, and artistic license distort the truth and form new and conflicting understandings of the world.
In order to understand any type of media, be it maps or newscasts, it is paramount to take into account the levels of distortion that may have occurred. My art making practice developed out of this understanding of the relativity of information. By recontextualizing the information on commonly available maps I developed a context of perpetual assimilation. At first glance of my newest map the scale of the work allows the viewer to engage it from distance. The map made is 16’ by 18’ on two large sheets of frost colored vellum. Upon closer viewing the details of the lines can be seen. The map is composed of millions of small lines no larger than the lead of a pencil, creating a complex and undecipherable network.
This work is created by first taking hundreds of atlas pages of locations all around the world and collaging them together on a wall. The collage was intentionally random and from maps distributed in the United States, to illustrate an American optimist and utopian view of the world. I then covered the collage with two long sheets of vellum. The vellum was used to reference the history of cartography and for the vellum’s ability to preserve detailed ink lines. I then traced the lines that connect all of the collaged maps together, on top of the vellum. The lines that govern society (boarders, roads, and territories) were treated with the same thin black line as the lines that govern nature (rivers, landmass, migration patterns). I didn’t alter any of the lines from the original collage; instead I only left out information and changed the orientation. This mapscape illustrates the intricacy of the modern world in ways that a traditional map cannot and begins a conversation about affections of globization on a diverse and changing world.
Lace Bassett lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. He grew up, however, in a small town in Colorado. It was there that he met a local artist named Stewart Coutington Andrews whom he apprenticed with for many years. He painted with him every day after school, learning realistic oil painting techniques. Andrews encouraged Bassett to pursue art because he felt that art was a fulfilling way to understand and experience the world.
Lace Bassett writes:
When a child is first born it has no understanding of the boundaries that separates itself from the rest of the world. Once it gains this understanding it will spend the rest of its life separating the world into two categories, “Mine and yours.” The human race has been doing this for thousands of years and has developed complex systems by which to parcel out every inch of land, gallon of water, and molecule of air. These systems are illustrated and understood as line. These lines are no more visible than God and likewise require a certain level of “faith.” But factors like propaganda, lack of accurate information, mistranslation, social perception, and artistic license distort the truth and form new and conflicting understandings of the world.
In order to understand any type of media, be it maps or newscasts, it is paramount to take into account the levels of distortion that may have occurred. My art making practice developed out of this understanding of the relativity of information. By recontextualizing the information on commonly available maps I developed a context of perpetual assimilation. At first glance of my newest map the scale of the work allows the viewer to engage it from distance. The map made is 16’ by 18’ on two large sheets of frost colored vellum. Upon closer viewing the details of the lines can be seen. The map is composed of millions of small lines no larger than the lead of a pencil, creating a complex and undecipherable network.
This work is created by first taking hundreds of atlas pages of locations all around the world and collaging them together on a wall. The collage was intentionally random and from maps distributed in the United States, to illustrate an American optimist and utopian view of the world. I then covered the collage with two long sheets of vellum. The vellum was used to reference the history of cartography and for the vellum’s ability to preserve detailed ink lines. I then traced the lines that connect all of the collaged maps together, on top of the vellum. The lines that govern society (boarders, roads, and territories) were treated with the same thin black line as the lines that govern nature (rivers, landmass, migration patterns). I didn’t alter any of the lines from the original collage; instead I only left out information and changed the orientation. This mapscape illustrates the intricacy of the modern world in ways that a traditional map cannot and begins a conversation about affections of globization on a diverse and changing world.
Lace Bassett collages atlas pages to trace into Mapscapes.
Mapscape by Lace Bassett
