Scott Grieger is not one
to chase around his psyche grabbing after inspirations. His muse neither
soars on fancies nor wallows in emotions. Instead, she urges her master
to walk through life wearing ordinary sensibilities and encountering
ordinary experiences. Grieger's creative process is conducted from a
worldly vantage point because he is an image-collector more than an
image-inventor. Indeed, he is recognized as a connoisseur of images,
even though his most prized specimens are typically ignored by those
trained to scrutinize art for aesthetic pleasure, insight, and wisdom.
This is because Grieger doesn't collect art. He specializes in pre-existing
emblems of significance that he discovers by inspecting supermarket
shelves, billboards, computer screens, T-shirts, sneakers, caps, backpacks,
toys, games, television ads, sports, and packaging.
Out of the surfeit that gushes
through the turbulent rapids of today's supersaturated image-stream,
his astute sensibilities identify those that most agitate this visual
torrent. These few constitute the ingredients of his art. Grieger takes
these aspects of the raging flood, dams them up and rechannels them
deep into the culture's collective unconscious. He brainwashes his audience
in reverse, cleansing their indoctrinated minds and purging the forces
that hold dominion there.
But his self-appointed mission
exceeds clearing his viewer's mental slates. Grieger hangs around to
inscribe his own versions of these images, capitalizing on their power
to alter attitudes. By installing responsible and ethical thoughts where
frivolous mental habits existed, he sublimates the subliminal. The effects
of the unrelenting assault of political and corporate propaganda are
thereby dislodged. This deep mind work is always initiated by something
external. Grieger discovers it on the sidewalk, from the car, over the
internet, inside the mall. Grieger harvests the most pervasive logos
and icons because they are potent attitude-benders and opinion-modifiers.
These simple, flat, monochromatic
shapes constitute our culture's collective language. Their meanings
are absorbed without instruction or practice. Like uninvited intruders,
they infiltrate our psyches to confuse the difference between thoughts
that are externally inculcated from those that are self-induced. These
images amass the power of catalytic converters by representing such
complex subjects as corporate structures, advertising ploys, business
practices, class distinctions, ecological responsibility, gender identities,
and social values. Furthermore, Grieger prefers common images from the
cultural landscape because they are inescapable. Loaded images are Grieger's
raw material. He changes their appearance, which changes their meaning,
which changes consciousness, which corrects the ills of society.