It was meant to be.

2004
installation
adhesive letters, plywood, acrylic paint, nail anchors, electric tape, tarot cards

Everything happens for a reason/ It was meant to be.

Project Statement:
This project began after a personal rejection prompted friends and family members to console me by saying, “Everything happens for a reason” or “It was meant to be.” Suspicious of this automated, albeit caring, response, I became interested in the presumed predestination of my rejection. Was this rejection—only one in a multitude of events—more significant than any other, simply because others chose to impose some irrational, cosmic inference upon it?
The first five panels begin the search for a reason by first deconstructing language. Letters follow linguistic rules or patterns that make up words and imply meaning. In these panels, words, or meaningful letter combinations are the lucky result of random selection. Limitations or standardization in material and letter frequency have been imposed on each of the panels in order to parallel human limitations.
Five additional panels have been added to juxtapose the first in order to examine a mystical or non-existential belief system. Tarot cards were introduced to mimic the random selection process. They also imply a use of another phenomenon, whether fate or the subconscious. In these panels the letters placed on the boards promote our desire to search for meaning, as in the first series, but upon closer examination, these panels reveal text that are literal transcriptions of the definitions for the Tarot cards.
Finally, a sculptural element is incorporated to deconstruct space within the parameters of language and referential meaning. The white cube, reduced to its simplest form, becomes a specific thing by attaching a word to it; however, the literal interpretation is convoluted, by the variations of meaning. Placement within the gallery space also serves as a tool to aid in another consideration needed to discover the derivation of meaning.