| Scientists are discovering
that the subconscious has its own system of organization in operation,
parallel to that of the conscious mind. Important aspects of our lives
are unavailable to us, buried as they are in our selves. We are in a sense
on a voyage where the map is hidden.
I have kept a record of dreams since 1977. Stream of consciousness excerpts
from this record entered my work in 1995. Since then, I have made a group
of conceptually connected works: mixed-media paintings, sculptures, and
videos based upon memory as it emerges from and is transformed by dreams.
These works are not surrealistic renderings of dream imagery, but meditations
on its significance. They include marks and writing that act as signifiers
of remembrance.
My process is to excerpt random segments from my dream journals, many
of which have a gender based context, and integrate them into two- and
three-dimensional objects. The fragments of language become forms in the
works; the works are the visual embodiment of the text. I work with color,
shape, found objects and the human figure. In producing the work, I rely
on accumulation, alteration, change and the ability to welcome elements
of chance, as well as the on the process of layering, revealing and obscuring.
The texture in the work becomes a metaphor for the layered complexity
of the mind.
Barbara Bachner – December 2002
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