Kevin Van Aelst works in the media of the commonplace. The images in his fingerprint series, for example, are rendered on typewriter paper, or with cheese puffs, fragments of cassette tape, sugar, yarn, kite string or cat shit. Or mustard. Or pie crust. There is humor in his work, for sure, but also something incredibly tender. In “Serotonin, 2008,” the droplets on a windowpane are arranged to represent the molecular structure of the neurotransmitter responsible for depression, but the photograph overall reflects the melancholy itself.
According to Aelst, “My color photographs consist of common artifacts and scenes from everyday life, which have been rearranged, assembled, and constructed into various forms, patterns, and illustrations. The images aim to examine the distance between the ‘big picture’ and the ‘little things’ in life—the banalities of our daily lives, and the sublime notions of identity and existence. While the depictions of information—such as an EKG, fingerprint, map or anatomical model—are unconventional, the truth and accuracy to the illustrations are just as valid as more traditional depictions. This work is about creating order where we expect to find randomness, and also hints that the minutiae all around us is capable of communicating much larger ideas.”
(via DudeCraft)
