Is there a word for the naked notion of technique? The artist borrows the word "bricolage"- A bricoleur is a kind of handyman who enjoys adroitly drawing upon all sorts of everyday things - just what lies at hand - to attend to those things that make the good life.



Ken's bricolage starts with a photograph and builds upon it with instinctive subtlety. He affectionately chooses a photo of persons he cares about deeply. The developed enlargements are pieced together to form a whole, if fractured, image which is glued to canvas- This bare, broken first statement is richly enhanced by things which come to mind or lie at hand - a fragment of a letter, a photo from the past, a pressed flower, or by paintbrush, an echo of times past, a scent of endearment, a hint of hope, such stuff as dreams are made of- "Whatever it takes" says the artist, an intuitive bricoleur of the human mystery.

And so, layer upon layer, just as our lives are made of the "impasto" of all that ever happens, the artist builds an icon of innocence which is beyond moral judgement or mortal denial. Ken Flett compels our engagement in the genial complicity of an inescapable communion.



Shaping Stones, blog

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