Daniel Bruce

My most recent objects and images were conceived as conflations of my own personal idiosyncrasies regarding power and value. These investigations require that I discern the ruses and value relations of our postmodern condition in order to re-purpose a stratagem of my own that highlights the suspect nature and ideological parameters of convention. My interest dwells in the moment when sign-value takes precedence over use-value and the location of this moment in the history of commodity. The work is aligned with what I’ve coined a ‘bumpkin aesthetic’—the methodological combination of the awkward and unsophisticated with the ideals of artistic validity. ‘Bumpkin Aesthetic’ has a conflicted nature that simultaneously conjures both high and low cultural practice in advocation of ambiguity, heterogeneity, and freedom.