Joe Hedges
Joe Hedges is an intermedia artist with an expansive practice that weaves together oil painting, new media, and installation. Shortly before the advent of the internet, Hedges grew up climbing trees and drawing in rural southwest Ohio. After a spell writing songs and touring with an alternative rock band, he recommitted himself to the visual arts and has been playing with paint and gently used electronic devices ever since. Hedges is currently living in Pullman, Washington, USA, where he makes use of his diverse background in the arts to create original combinatorial works.Artist Statement
The tension between a digitally networked, screen-based experience of the world and a physical, more tactile experience has never been more acute. My works reflect this fragmented reality by combining painting on canvases with screens, tablets, and other electronics and materials. While I celebrate the unexpected creative possibilities within our tangled technological and art historical milieu, I also lament our collective loss of human agency and embodied experience as more and more of our decisions are influenced by algorithms. My hope is that by looking at painting as a form of media technology, we might see contemporary forms of media more objectively.
joehedges.com
Can you describe the core themes and emotions you explore in your current body of work?
At the core of my current work is an exploration of the human relationship with technology. I’m fascinated by the tension between the physical, embodied experience of being human and the screen-based existence that defines so much of contemporary life. My art seeks to provoke both a sense of wonder about unexplored possibilities embedded within analog and digital systems while casting a critical eye toward the ways these technologies reshape our consciousness, social structures, and sense of self.
How does your creative process unfold from concept to completion?
My process is very iterative, and I go back and forth between digital and hands-on making. I often begin with an object. The object could be a discarded DVD player, a CRT-TV, a foil emergency blanket, or anything that seems interesting to me. I try not to overthink it. From there, I will experiment digitally and create sketches for possible ways I could integrate the object alongside painted elements, thinking about art history and painting archetypes. Sometimes I will screen record my process, and then the screen recordings of digital experiments become video works that get incorporated into the finished works.
Ultimately, I want works that have an impact in physical space, although the digital photo documentation of the works is important to me too—sharing digital photos of the pieces online becomes another layer of the work, creating a cyclical journey from physical object to digital representation and back again several times, so that the process mirrors the tensions my art explores.
What inspires you most outside of the visual arts, and how does it influence your work?
I find inspiration in music and travel. I spent some time writing rock songs and touring in a band before committing myself to visual arts. Music is now more of a hobby, but it shows up in my work directly through incorporating stereos and sound into painting-combines, and indirectly through an embrace of the rebellious spirit and DIY ethos of rock music. I have a lot of creative hobbies now, and part of my practice is coming up with playful ways to fold different kinds of media and ideas into my work. Doing exhibitions now affords me exciting opportunities to travel, and seeing new places and meeting people ends up inspiring my work as well.
How do you navigate the balance between personal expression and the commercial aspects of your career?
I have always prioritized creative expression over commercial viability. I think when you start making work for collectors or guessing about what might be marketable, it’s tough to really be innovative or authentic. At the same time, making a living is important, and I am lucky now to have a full-time job that gives me some liberty. I had kind of given up on selling work when I started making these challenging combinatorial things. Then, to my surprise, as my work became more unconventional and unwieldy, my profile grew. I recently participated in several international art fairs, with professional collectors purchasing my work. This is all kind of new to me, but I think as long as the work is coming from an authentic place, it’s fantastic if people want to collect and exhibit it! I just feel fortunate to get to make and share my work.
What message or feeling do you hope viewers take away from experiencing your art?
I hope viewers feel intrigued and intellectually curious. I am trying to create some space for reflection on our historical and ongoing entanglement with the tools of human technology, understood broadly. Our tools help to define us, from hammers to digital tablets. Painting itself is a technology that continues to evolve. And there are exciting new digital technologies that help creators as well. But the recent rapid advances in A.I. and the near totalitarian level of corporate surveillance and invasive algorithms that now define our smartphone-based existences are concerning, to say the least, and the future is uncertain. For me, making art and experiencing art is one way we can hang on to our humanity.
