Charles VanMeter BA
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My work deals with feelings of anxiety and uncertainty by reflecting neglected or abandoned spaces. Over time, their state of disrepair becomes familiar and comfortable, making one question the value of undertaking any improvements. There comes a point when it is easier to let things fall apart than it is to reverse the process of decay. Beyond even this, man made construction eventually returns to nature as the growth around them overcomes the last of their structural integrity.
Without proper maintenance and care, even the most trusted institutional buildings will follow this path, for better or worse. In the same way, it is possible to employ maladaptive coping mechanisms to one’s own mental landscape, causing an eventual degradation of ones interior life and sense of worth. If we do not spend time on the upkeep of our health, both physical and mental, we can slip into a state of apathy where we begin to believe this is our new “normal”. I hope to bring perspective to this problem using visuals that are recognizable in our everyday lives, such as broken windows, crumbling architecture, rusting metals, and out of place discarded objects. Painting, printmaking, drawing, sculpture, and photography are the tools I currently employ to capture and depict my chosen subject matter because of their relationship with time, memory, and the physical world.
Because we innately understand these objects and how they came to exist as a part of the scenery of urban sprawl, we often take for granted the time and care that originally went into their creation. We would sooner discard objects and create replacements for them than we would to restore them to their original state or improve them entirely. This mentality is once again often reflected in the way we treat ourselves, our lives and our bodies. Challenging this mindset is important to me, as I continue to work on my own mental health, and believe that it is worth the time and care it takes to regain a healthy sense of comfort.
