Amanny Ahmad - Perpetual Motion                                                                      Exhibition Dates: August 8 - August 30 2014

Perpetual Motion is an exhibition of new work spanning a range of media, which explores concepts of universality and flux within cultural systems of language and commodity. Through photography, painting, and found objects, the meanings of iconic symbols within economy-based societies are investigated and framed for the viewer to reconsider. Whether found in the ubiquitous athletic swoosh, or in a simple kinetic gesture that resists classification and economy, such as pouring, pulling, or massaging, the universality of these symbols is clear. In this simultaneously expanding and shrinking world, the rate at which things change is immeasurable, and this is especially evident in rapidly transforming systems of language. These works lend the viewer an opportunity to meditate on signs that are embedded into the developed language of human exchange. Photographs serve as a vignette through which one can approach minimal sculptural representations of the universal qualities of being. Icons found in these frames often go unrecognized due to an invisibility created by their omnipresence, yet their anthropological impact is so widespread that the viewer may access meaning regardless their own socioeconomic or geographical positioning.

According to Aristotle, motion is understood as any kind of change, or, the actuality of a potentiality. Still images posses a kinetic energy through their capture of the essence of motion, or the possibilities of motion. In these photographs, motion is unavoidable, as it is found in the squeeze of a bottle, or more subtly in the growth of a cactus over time. The movements and growth of systems of language (spoken, physical, visual) through time are directly related to the transience of the cultures they serve. These forms of communication are in constant flux, as are the meanings we come to identify with the wordless images and gestures we experience. These paintings, utilizing airbrushing and decals, become amalgamations of colors, signs, and icons, re-appropriating bootleg imagery in yet another form. These transformations of icons across media are further evidence of the perpetual nature of motion and change within systems of language.