mB Artist.08

Val Britton

Burst Apart (detail 1), 2011

An ongoing concern in my studio practice is how to push the language of abstraction in order to create a visceral sense of movement through space and an emotional impact. I am interested in how my work can explore the tension between chaos and imposed order, the concrete and the imaginary, the known and unknown. Traveling, navigating routes, mapping our experiences, making choices at a crossroads, viewing purpose as a destination: these common metaphors link experiencing life with the notion of a journey. In my work I often think about how the retelling of our stories, the reconstruction of our journeys, helps us make sense of the now, and how the retelling is its own journey. Mapping serves as a metaphor for searching, an implication of the unknown in wide, open spaces, and a trace of how we see where we've been.