Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

I have been listening to Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel as I work on a new comission. The book is constructed around letters from his daughter Sour Maria Celeste and is about Galileo Galilei's life as the foremost Italian scholar of the seventeenth century, his earth shaking discoveries, all framed by his eventual clash with Catholic doctrine. I am often drawn to the investigation of definition as subject or the edges of redefinition. The place where one myth is replaced by another or the explanation that reflects current discovery and the truths of a new epoch take hold. The science and art of Italy in the seventeenth century were all about new truths and redefinition of the accepted truth. While listening to Galileo's Daughter I have been working on several images and a commission who's subject is “Pillars of the World.” These originally began with a Monotype print titled Telamones. Telamones are the male equivalent of the female Caryatids...

 Today I have been looking through older work trying to decide what I might show in Vashon Allied Arts Archives Art Sale at the Blue Heron Gallery. I came up with several collaged monoprints from a series dating from and referencing the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In 2003 we were being bombarded by euphemisms to sell and provide cover for war. Preemptive War , promoting a war to prevent war is a good example, as is Collateral Damage , people killed in military actions who were not the intended target. How about Enhanced Interrogation ? I mean torture. I was offended and thought a print series highlighting these tittles of misdirection and militarization of the US media was an appropriate response. The print titled I Don't Know But I've been Told , (originally words from a military marching cadence,) is about people's willingness to believe. Without question, they march in the direction they are told. The...