Don Pollack

Pollack's work explores the relationship between personal and collective mythologies and the living surfaces of the canvas, revealing an interest in the ways in which painting contributes to the construction of identity. The images are a result of a continued process of considering these issues and trying to understand the nature of representation. From this perspective, he explores the way painting can simultaneously give reference to impermanence and the shifting visions of photography and the transience of a moment. In examining the discourse between social constructs and the art of painting, Pollack relies on nineteenth-century photographs as paradigms of memory and the passage of time. This work has also led him to investigate the role of “museums” in this process. The creation and display of painted documents, maps, signs, and portraits have also been included in recent exhibition-installations. In these works, style categories have been replaced with projects that allow for any image to be rendered in paint resulting in the perception of "styles" as a form of public language. Conceptually, his works proceed from the premise that all vision is historic and constructed.