PORTFOLIO (1)
BIO
Mr Pickerill is a multi-media artist with roots in poetry and photography. He has been influenced by artists such as W. S. Burroughs, S. Beckett, B. Gysin, A. Artaud, the Viennese Actionists, and 70's SoCal video and performance art. Since 1997 he has been developing the Omen Project, a series of performances, video, and installations centered on his writing, and inspired by the themes in the Iliad and the Odyssey and Star Trek. He has staged 12 productions and taken part in many Video festivals internationally, including participation in the Liverpool Biennial and recently he has performed in 'The Plague' by Fulya Pecker. Mr. Pickerill lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Artists Statement:
For fifteen years I have been making art about a man who is leaving life --- I am now looking to find him, searching for what has been forgotten by this marooned wayfarer, a Odysseus of outer space. Using space travel as an allegory of humanities journey and its continuing growth of mind and heart, I see my work as transmissions, incantations, signals from a life raft set adrift in the stars; earth. Calling out, a sojourner signaling to the beloved, across the gulf in our understanding. The heart and the mind are separated. This loss of unity is as vast as space. Man/mind being as an astronaut lost/stranded on a lifeless rock far from home/earth and love which is the heart/life/lover. She is the Lost Shore of his dreams. An island of unity to call home and find the embrace of his love. The vast gulf in his being as a purgatory of memories. These memories though are his vehicle, but will they return him to his love?
To better understand the Omen Project one can look to my bookshelf project synthesizing its contents: The Iliad and The Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, El Topo, episode #38 of the original Star Trek series, Metamorphosis and Star Trek The Motion Picture. With this keeping in mind this line from the Omen Project. 'Somewhere between the heart and the mind something went wrong.' The unifying theme in these being the humbling of man (humanity) seeking to dominate and control the heart, the emotions, the body (woman/earth) with reason. With Love bringing our characters together, unifying the heart and the mind, male and female, reason and emotion the universe is completed.
Somewhere between the heart and the mind, something went wrong.
Artists Statement:
For fifteen years I have been making art about a man who is leaving life --- I am now looking to find him, searching for what has been forgotten by this marooned wayfarer, a Odysseus of outer space. Using space travel as an allegory of humanities journey and its continuing growth of mind and heart, I see my work as transmissions, incantations, signals from a life raft set adrift in the stars; earth. Calling out, a sojourner signaling to the beloved, across the gulf in our understanding. The heart and the mind are separated. This loss of unity is as vast as space. Man/mind being as an astronaut lost/stranded on a lifeless rock far from home/earth and love which is the heart/life/lover. She is the Lost Shore of his dreams. An island of unity to call home and find the embrace of his love. The vast gulf in his being as a purgatory of memories. These memories though are his vehicle, but will they return him to his love?
To better understand the Omen Project one can look to my bookshelf project synthesizing its contents: The Iliad and The Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, El Topo, episode #38 of the original Star Trek series, Metamorphosis and Star Trek The Motion Picture. With this keeping in mind this line from the Omen Project. 'Somewhere between the heart and the mind something went wrong.' The unifying theme in these being the humbling of man (humanity) seeking to dominate and control the heart, the emotions, the body (woman/earth) with reason. With Love bringing our characters together, unifying the heart and the mind, male and female, reason and emotion the universe is completed.
Somewhere between the heart and the mind, something went wrong.
