Pump Gallery presents:

Nick Deford

An opening reception will be held in the Flood Gallery from 7-10 pm on Saturday, July 24th. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

"My work explores the visual culture of geography, cartography and other structural systems of information that is then edited, or altered in order to codify the relationship of identity and place. The disruption of visual information examines the thin boundary between the known and unknown. Using maps, globes, calendars and cosmic charts, information is revealed in relation to recognizable geographic imagery; but some information is withheld by covering or layering. This action occurs through additive processes, such as stitching, process drawing, and the application of stickers, White-out, or tape. Using office supplies ties the work back to the classrooms and business centers where they are originally utilized: places where information is organized and prepared. The embroidery needle cuts through the pages of maps or books and changes the original structure of information in a physical and intimate transformation. The repetitive "hand-mechanical" process used in drawing or stitching gives the work an added inference of compulsivity and concern. In order to examine that boundary between the known and unknown, I select for subject matter places that are infamous for their mystery. Marginalized geography, liminal places that border the strange and uncanny, stresses the relationship between identity and place. These mysterious sites may be the habitation of monsters, the center of conspiracy, or a vortex of mysticism. We understand ourselves by naming and categorizing, and mapping is a method of understanding not only personal location, but also personal identity. My work questions the efficacy of that process, and this futility solicits a reidentification within viewers of a sense of place and the unknown."

Nick DeFord currently teaches drawing at the University of Tennessee; he earned his BFA in drawing from the University of Tennessee, and MFA in fibers from Arizona State University. He has exhibited his work nationally and has recently had work at Fluorescent Gallery in Knoxville, the Tucson Museum of Art and Whittier College in California.

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