Joey Behrens
Involving a variety of forms such as drawing, printmaking, and actions, my practice is driven by an interest in the structures and systems that compose the mundane backdrop of everyday life. My work is concerned with the relationship between people and the built environment and is a response to the intuitive and concrete knowledge I acquire through the experience of being in the world. My drawing, for example, involves making marks that correlate with how my eye reads the construction and organization of a space by moving through it. I draw buildings and spaces that I have observed directly, so the act of drawing creates a kind of muscle memory, one that is both perceptual as it is based on looking and physical as it is the result of my body moving through a space. I strive to create work that brings the backdrop of life to the forefront in ways that cause the Everyday to bump up against Art. To do this I employ a variety of tactics. Increasingly, the production of my work involves social engagement; actions designed to interrupt normal expectations and spark conversations that draw from and are carried out by a diverse community of participants. As I practice it, art is a relationship that exists in the space between author; object, image, or action; and audience. Like conversation, this space is neither bound by my intentions nor simply received by the audience. Its dimensions are discovered through an exchange of energy that, at its best, opens up new possibilities and potentials from which we view the world around us.
See more of Joey’s work here