Illinois College Contemporary Art Gallery

Austin B.: Working with the medium you use, have you ever ran into problems that limited your work or message you try to portray?

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Darel Carey: I work with a few mediums:  paint, ink, digital, tape. For me it’s less about the particular medium and more about the lines. Lately I have concentrated on using tape. One issue I’ve run into with tape is the problem of temporary vs permanent. When I started using tape, my installations were all temporary, and they lived further through my documentation, images and usually a time-lapse video. But as I continue to work with tape, I find myself in situations where more permanence is desired. I use different tapes or a combination with paint to solve this problem. I don’t think this interferes with my message, as for me it is more about the dimensional lines vs the tape. That’s for me, I know that some who like my work like the tape specifically because it’s different & unique. Another thing about using tape that is kind of the opposite of limiting, is that I can install in a space that otherwise couldn’t be painted. I can go on ceilings and floors pretty quickly. And I can take it down the same day. It really just depends on what I’m trying to do.

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AB: What do you want to convey through your work with the use of tape, and how does it relate to contemporary art?

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DC: As I mentioned, for me it is less about the tape, more about the dimensionality of my lines. With my art, I want people to think about perception, how limited we are at perceiving things visually. And how a simple combination of lines can, in a sense, hack our perception. We find interest when confronted with the edge of our perceivability. I want people to question what they see, what is real, and what is possible.

Having said that, I do see the tape as an example of what we can achieve with something considered trivial and overlooked. People think of art needing to be a certain way or done with ‘approved’ mediums. People think that using a more expensive brush will create better art. Or a digital drawing is ‘less’ than a painting. But it’s really about the artist. To me it doesn’t necessarily matter what you’re using, it’s all about how you’re using it.

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AB: Have your worked with other mediums? What caused you to go all in on the main medium you use for your work?

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DC: Yes, as a kid & young adult I used pencils, pens, and paint (acrylic & spray paint). After that I got into digital (drawing on a Wacom Cintiq with Photoshop) and Sharpies & paint markers. When I went to Otis (2012-2016) I used oil paint, ink, printmaking techniques, tape, and even a little bit of laser engraving.

I went to art school to find myself and figure out what I wanted to do with art. I was in the Air Force for 11 years and suddenly felt a need to pursue art or I would regret not trying. (That epiphany moment for me is a whole other story.) When I got to Otis I was all over the place trying many things, many mediums, and many genres. I took fine art at school but at the same time was selling my graphic designs on t-shirts at hip hop events. I painted realistic portraits while at the same time drawing abstract patterns with lines. During my senior year, my studio had a group show in the school gallery, and we decided to grid the entire space and include each of our works in the grid. The show was called ‘On My Grid.’ We used black tape to grid up the entire gallery (floor and walls), and I ended up doing most of that taping. That made me think of using tape as a medium itself for my art. The grid was supposed to be a backdrop for our art, but to me the grid could itself be art. I ended up using colored tape to create my piece in the grid, and later combined the lines I normally drew with the medium of tape. I could traverse many surfaces, and scale up pretty easily, and I liked these freedoms. Once I combined my line work with tape as the medium, I had a really good feeling about the potential, and how it satisfied my interests.

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AB: What has influenced your work and how do you want your work to influence others?

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One influence to me is the psychology of seeing. How our eyes evolved and how our brains interpret what our eyes see.

Another influence is my synesthesia, which is a crossing of the senses. I think mine is a mild version. When I hear sounds and have my eyes closed I see wavy lines. I never knew what that was until a few years ago.. I assumed everyone had the same experience.

Another influence to me is the patterns of nature. My work is very organic and naturally flowing, and I see this time and again throughout nature. Tree trunk rings, spider webs, large geological formations like the Grand Canyon with striated layers of rock, ocean waves, lines in leaves, schools of fish, starlings flying in murmurations, cloud formations.. too many examples.

An influence that is an artist, as I mention in my bio, is MC Escher. When I discovered his art I was immediately fascinated. Relativity, his tessellations, and impossible geometric shapes really intrigued me.

Much of my work, I must admit, has come from an internal place. I didn’t start creating certain art because I was inspired by other artists, I was inspired by other artists because their art and ideas were similar to mine. Regarding my line work and optical art specifically, I was introduced to artists like Carl Krull, Sol LeWitt, and Bridget Riley while attending Otis. Professors saw my work and thought that I would be interested in these artists.

I want my work to influence others in the same way Escher influenced me. I want to make people think about what is real in the world and how much our subjectivity can skew our perception of the world. When people think about these ideas, they may spawn new ideas based on similar concepts:  perception, perspective, nature, psychology, and illusion. I hope to inspire others to pursue these concepts in any realm, not just in the realm of art.. in the realm of our culture and society, in a natural, evolving way, the way that I was influenced and the way that I came to create.

See more from Darel Carey at https://www.darelcarey.com/