ARTIST STATEMENT

9/20/2022

I am a maker. I make drawings, paintings, sounds, videos, and sculptures. I use these artifacts in concert to create installations that provoke play. On these pseudo-stages there are no scripts, the work is driven by a contract to explore our collective experience. My work is often large, immersive, and focused on collaboration. Cooperation appears in interactions with other artists in the making of the work, as well as with the audience in exhibition. I believe we are the culture we create together. This interplay in my work provokes questions of how we define the author, the reader, and the power dynamics between these roles. My work seeks to empower the viewer and engage them in discourse about the condition of being alive in our time. As our society transitions into one dominated by abstractions through technology, it seems we are in dire need of visceral experiences and personal connections, therefor my work approaches subjects of the heart and mind through physical interface. My hope is that the viewer will use the work as an opportunity to question their presence in the world and be inspired to find voice to tell their own story.

-Preston Drum