Neysa Page Lieberman

Clare Britt's electrifying installation confronts the ever-blurring line that distinguishes "fine" and "commercial" art. Aluminum Hill, her thesis project, pulls from both of these worlds by exposing similar trends that permeate the realms of fine art and fashion. Britt's work suggests that both of these genres are fed by consumerism through appropriating and recycling the commercial use of color, texture, symbols, motifs and concepts. Aluminum Hill explores this idea through a study of color.

Britt's process began with pouring over Vogue magazines in search of a prevalent color. After settling on a violet-blue hue, she noticed that the color permeates not just the pages of trend setting magazines, but also art galleries, museums, wedding decor, music videos, designer boutiques, website graphics, daily news broadcasts and so on. In this contemporary context, the color is all about hype -- causing an excitement and drive to consume. Ironically, blue is traditionally known for its calming effect, and thus a riveting dichotomy unfolds.

Once Britt decided on this color as her source material she started cutting it out from the magazine pages, removing it from its context and creating abstract and bizarre shapes. As with any gorgeous image in a magazine, the lines between fantasy and reality are purposefully blurred and Britt relished in deconstructing the images and thus subverting the magazine's narrative. These newly cut out fragments of reality are randomly regrouped on a scanner to be digitally skewed, distorted and rescaled into a seamless collage that rejoins the colors back into a single source.

The collages are printed out on adhesive vinyl and become the artist’s brushstrokes as they are applied to the walls. Next they are completely painted over in the same color, over-saturating and suffocating the image. By using an airbrush to apply the paint, the artist comments on photography's dependence on airbrushing tools to support the myth of beauty and perfection. But simultaneously, Britt has embraced the light, airy atmospheric effect of the airbrush on the space, invoking the calming effect of blue.

A struggle has taken place on the walls, as the collages have broken free from the mold of painting and the smooth, seamless surface. Leaving behind dynamic white shapes that playfully bounce around on the wall, the collages have been absorbed into a heap of crumpled aluminum in the center of the floor, no longer even visible to the viewer. The aluminum sculpture assumes the central focus, with the now hidden collages at its heart. Aluminum-mounted photography is the technique of choice for fine art photography, a sure way to distinguish it from commercial media. Yet Britt has wadded up the material and placed it on the floor in a statement that suggests its best quality is actually its ability to elegantly reflect the blue rays from its many shiny, sharp surfaces. The installation forces the viewer to consider how today's visual artist is competing not only with other fine artists, but with commercial media of all kinds.

Ultimately, Aluminum Hill is a playing field where commercial and fine art, painting and photography, landscape and installation, can duke it out. And as the competing forces struggle for dominance, the result is a magnificent spectacle.