ARTIST STATEMENT

“Moonlight Sonata” is a mixed-media collage by Jan Kirstein Rigor. 20″ x 20″ on stretched canvas. 2023.

I am a Visual Artist from the United States working primarily with mixed-media collage, painting, drawing and digital art. My materials often include Sumi e Ink, Calligraphy brushes, charcoal, pastel, watercolor, acrylic, and a variety of papers including Japanese rice paper and canvas.

My work involves exploration and experimentation through brushwork, markings and layered, open passages that lead the viewer on a journey of discovery, associations and insights. Through observing the relationships of applied materials to a surface, layers of seemingly random associations can merge into realization, recognition and awareness.

These perceptions can then transform into a meaningful and unified whole. I think of creating this work as though I am sifting through an archeological dig of the subconscious mind, moving as if though layers upon layer of earth. Barely recognizable forms emerge from the surface of the paintings into a conscious gestalt where meanings are meant to galvanize through the viewer’s own personal references and connections.

Surrealism in the early 20th Century used Psychic Automatism combined with acts of automatic writing based on the works of Sigmund Freud to seek revelations of the Subconscious mind in order to break through the mundane. My collages combine automatic writing as well as asemic writing with a similar purpose. Surrealism drew inspiration from other non-western primal cultures which provided an alternative set of aesthetic and social values.

I also incorporate Nano images that capture the microscopic scale with my collages, combining these size references with a more cosmic orientation. I am honored to have my collages with Nano images included in the mission of MoonArk. The nine-ounce MoonArk — a tiny time capsule-esque artifact of humanity — will be attached to a small lunar rover with the Moon as its planned destination.

The landing of MoonArk will be in Spring of 2023. The hope of this project is that one day The MoonArc may be picked up by lunar explorers — hundreds or thousands of years in the future. Originally known as the Moon Arts Project, MoonArk was designed in response to the 2007 Google Lunar XPRIZE competition.