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Featured Artist: Timothy Baird Layden
Timothy Baird Layden was born on the East Coast of the United
States on September 24th, 1970. He moved to Seattle in 1973. He has
been a student of art in the U.S., Mexico, and Italy. He now resides
in Madrid, Spain, where he is writing his doctoral thesis on synesthesia
and the relationship between painting and music. |
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Timothy specializes in mixed-media painting, though his work ranges
from metal engraving to wall sculpture. He makes use of ordinary
objects and materials to create extraordinary work. For instance,
his sculpture craving (see below) is comprised of a wooden
tequila crate, black clay from Oaxaca, metal bathroom signs, acrylic
paint, an audiotape (Roger Waters' Amused to Death), and
the wings of a crow.
The philosophy on which Timothy bases his style has its roots in
ancient Greek art and the concept of the Golden Section for harmonic
distribution of space, and branches off into his general studies
of the vanguard artists of the twentieth century and his interest
in the science of chaos. Of his work and interests, Timothy says:
"I have spent some time studying the psychology of perception: things
like synesthesia, hypnogogics, hypnotic states, and so forth.
"I feel that emotions and intuition are much stronger than
the rational mind when it comes to human behavior (or any sort of
behavior, for that matter). I also believe that there is something
even deeper and wiser than emotions and intuition -- something that
really directs the show of life -- but I haven't got the faintest
idea what that is. It must be where the gods Pan, Dionysus and their
accomplices dwell.
"Concurrent with my work on my thesis, I am painting jazz,
diagramming my perception of percepcion and trying to stay
just this side of fantasy with my head in the clouds and my feet
on the ground. I am on some sort of adventure breaking abstract
codes to unleash the truth behind ignorance. Or something like that."
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