Oliver Warden

To make these works I pour layers of oil medium onto digital composites that have been printed on stretched canvas. I grab these images from Hollywood films, satellites, video games, the Internet and many other digital sources. I cover that image with multiple semi-transparent pours in oil. This layering creates a low-relief topography inspired by many digital processes. These composites are landscapes that depict a world that communicates through the spectacle.

After 9/11 and Shock and Awe, Guy Debord's interpretation of the spectacle came to a frightening apex. It pushed the spectacle into an arena of immediate global significance. This vernacular, which is about the transformation of power, now permeates every part of our daily consumerist experience. With The Great American and surrounding works, I am attempting to examine this global vernacular head on by bringing it back in to the arena of art as a method of dissent.