A Stress-Free Point of View

I wonder about the ability of images to infect the meaning of one’s life. My background in art history and visual theory inspires my obsession with the life of images, their lineages and functions, and the untraceable code through which they influence what we know by guiding how we imagine.

Always images have surrounded us and now more than ever we are perpetually bombarded. Sucked into their imaginings, we identify however consciously with the way images contextualize their subjects. Cascading down through images across time and space, genealogies form and restrict imaginings more closely to specific interpretations. I am exploring the mess of this system to restore potential, especially queer potential, to conventional lineages of images.

Do you also feel anxious reconciling your experience in the world with your imagining of the world? And doing so according to the mysterious speculation made by never-ending onslaughts of old, new, and recycled images? I find it relaxing to make my own images because, wandering through them, I can recognize the universal power of images to amplify, filter, and suppress how I imagine.

I hope to catch the texture of an anonymous yet entirely particular perception (something familiar that feels strange and romantic, a reflection). Talking with an established logic bent-out-of-shape can reveal welcoming cracks in what remains permanently incomplete.

By losing myself to the mismatched tides and aimless currents of all sorts of imagery made in all sorts of years I sometimes land upon soft, stable places where it all unravels and hidden lines are easy to trace. In mixing together or disregarding types, tropes, and expectations I aim to celebrate subjects with a surreal, empathetic vision. From each untangling I hope to collect enough balance to offer the beginnings of a stress-free point of view.

© Joshua Tarplin - Fear Not, 2021
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Fear Not, 2021

© Joshua Tarplin - Laying Straight in the Fantastic Temperatures, 2019
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Laying Straight in the Fantastic Temperatures, 2019

© Joshua Tarplin - Poltergeist, 2021
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Poltergeist, 2021

© Joshua Tarplin - Fates, 2021
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Fates, 2021

© Joshua Tarplin - 17 Again, 2020
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17 Again, 2020

© Joshua Tarplin - Waiting for the Smoke to Clear, 2019
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Waiting for the Smoke to Clear, 2019

© Joshua Tarplin - Where Have All the Good Men Gone and Where Are All the Gods?, 2020
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Where Have All the Good Men Gone and Where Are All the Gods?, 2020

© Joshua Tarplin - Succession, 2021
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Succession, 2021

© Joshua Tarplin - Dido, 2021
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Dido, 2021

© Joshua Tarplin - Mona Lisa Halftime Show, 2020
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Mona Lisa Halftime Show, 2020

© Joshua Tarplin - Please Just Let Me Go, 2021
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Please Just Let Me Go, 2021

© Joshua Tarplin - Repose, 2021
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Repose, 2021

© Joshua Tarplin - Mommy Mori, 2021
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Mommy Mori, 2021

© Joshua Tarplin - Like an American, 2020
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Like an American, 2020

© Joshua Tarplin - Ophelia, 2021
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Ophelia, 2021

© Joshua Tarplin - An Old Conversation, 2021
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An Old Conversation, 2021

© Joshua Tarplin - Son, 2021
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Son, 2021

© Joshua Tarplin - Somebody's, 2020
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Somebody's, 2020

© Joshua Tarplin - Seraphim, 2021
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Seraphim, 2021

© Joshua Tarplin - Wash His Feet with My Hair If He Needs, 2021
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Wash His Feet with My Hair If He Needs, 2021

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