Ali Osborn

Artist Statement

I am searching for the state of wonder that precedes comprehension, when something is new, nameless, and abstract. As one becomes familiar with an object, one’s understanding of it changes and the language assigned to it—its name, description, context—also changes. The words glom onto the subject and affect how one sees it. Through my artistic practice I aim to locate a moment in this process of recognition where something’s identity isn’t yet cemented in familiarity, where one’s assumptions about that thing can be challenged.

I do this by making representations of things. I take something out of circulation and into the studio where I record it in graphite or ink pressed into paper. Each piece is at once a sample of a specimen and a reorientation of that specimen. Working with a set of objects in this way, I search for some common denominator that can be illuminated through subtle transformation: i.e. decontextualization, or material replacement. Once highlighted, a shared, fundamental trait—like wedgeness or the ability to demarcate space—proposes a connection between things that might appear unrelated at first. My art seeks to build a language from these connections and thereby imagine new systems of classification for the subjects.