ARTIST STATEMENT

Andrew Decaen’s work addresses the ritual and process of perception: learning, forgetting, and remembering.  His work is concerned primarily with the process of re-contextualizing the familiar in order to discover a deeper significance. 

“Catalyst” depicts simple mundane objects as metaphors for a psychological or spiritual significance. 

These objects are decidedly domestic… symbols of home and family.  

A catalyst is something that creates a transformation without itself changing in the process. 

I must ask the question, ‘What is the impetus for the transformations in the family?’

The question is still open and asking.

The space of questioning is curious and ambiguous…

Our perspective slides between looking down on a gas burner to looking across at a series of linked cups. 

The potential of these objects are symbolic as well as anecdotal.

They represent specific relationships in my own extended family…siblings and spouses. 

We will each come to an image with our own histories, our own hopes and fears.

We will each assign meaning to the images in this space.

Not all will ask the same questions.

The answer may not be so easily found.

The question asks.