Kyle Ethan Fischer
In dictionaries there are words and many meanings; lexicons include and omit. Humanity’s most distinct trait beside its thumb is its language. We have an intense need for words and an even greater need to classify, to define. It is this tendency to classify that determines a name and a name determines meaning. Whether this is concerning children, phyla, places, or feelings we must specify in order to rationalize, to make official, market, or own.
Words are interdependent on the context of the phrase, body of work, and speech they are included in. It is often the author who will define the word. If you find the word Metis in a dictionary there are several meanings- some words have more than others. It may define Metis as a satellite of Jupiter that is closest to the planet, a Titaness who was consort of Zeus, a person of mixed racial ancestry, a crossbred animal, a half-breed, or a person of mixed Native American and French-Canadian ancestry. In its Greek root it means wisdom, in Old French it means of mixed race and its Late Latin root means mixed. I am Metis.
As an artist it is often difficult to draw that which Fischer sees parallel or the opposites that coincide together. This is the idea of “coincidata oppositorium” or fruitful synthesis of opposites. Whether he chooses to work in a classical manner or in a more untraditional manner the marriage or the divorce of the mediums are circumvented for the concept or symbolic meaning. Fischer's choice in content is also representative of this idea- the threads often not making sense individually but as one vibrates a web appears with the focus apparent as an after thought.
It is the meditation on an idea or image that he hopes becomes a catalyst for the viewer. Whether he choosse to weave images of Hurricane Katrina with the symbolism of the Ghost Dance, martyrdom with patriotism, ledger drawings with jihad rugs, genealogy with mythology; it is his intent the viewer not conclude but question both the form and subject matter. Fischer tries not to define. It is this form of questioning which he hopes leaves the viewer mixed: with emotion, in medium, on process, with spirit.
Fischer works in a number of materials because they give him the process in which he may develop his own visual language. The images in some respects become secondary at times because it is the interweaving of the materials and process that develop the whole. For instance when he is working on a sculpture he will often use discarded, forgotten antique remnants of embroidery or lace. He weaves them through a chicken wire understructure to form bone, muscle or tendon and use pigment and animal hide glue to make it stiff and transform it. The discarded but very time intensive piece of embroidery or lace then becomes part of a whole. Because the work is by individuals of the past Fischer likes to think that his work is collective once he has created the figure- not only the hours it took him to make the piece but the hours that were consumed by the person or persons making the hand embroider and lace.
EDUCATION- Kyle Ethan Fischer received his BFA in Painting from The Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in Old Lyme Connecticut where he was classically trained. He studied the figure under Deane Keller and anatomist Dr. Wayne Southwick at Yale medical school, learned methods and materials from Steve Sheehan, director of the Ralph Meyer Center at Yale, and painting under David Dewey student of Hans Hoffman. After pursuing painting he received a stipend and scholarship to study abroad at the National College of Art, Dublin in Ireland concentrating on sculpture and installation and developing an understanding of the “sensation” ideology in the UK; influenced by artists Dorothy Cross and Damien Hirst. After returning to the U.S., he attended the Corcoran College of Art in Washington DC further exploring sculpture and under the tutelage of Genna Watson returned to the figure. Fischer then moved to Pittsburgh where he is able to pursue a pluralistic approach exploring all facets of materials from large scale installation and performance art to small expressionistic ink studies. He is a member of Group A and has exhibited locally and nationally.
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