My work aims to connect the visual culture of today to our vocabulary by using appropriated images and material. I am questioning how our vision trains our thinking. Turning through a magazine, flipping channels on the TV, scrolling through our ad-saturated news feeds. The trends in our media culture induce a destructive passiveness towards our own lives. I’m obsessed. I’m fascinated. We are in control, blindly in power of a culture congested by a traffic of pictures. Yet we want more. I have adopted this understanding of excess in all my work. I contribute to, and also question, our mania through the isolation, repetition and appropriation of mainstream images.

During Luminous Bodies, I want to explore how the representation of classical figures in traditional oil paintings has informed modern advertising language. This research will inspire a body of work that features diverse working methods and presentation through multiple mediums such as collage, painting, sculpture, video, and installations. In order to connect our history to the present, I will research the methods and writings of thinkers such as John Berger, Tom Wesselmann, Peter Blake, James Rosenquist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and more.

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Paige Madden is a multi-media artist living and working in Colorado. Her area of focus ranges from the dynamics of pop culture and consumerism to the exploration of self-identity. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The College of Wooster.