Joe Hedges

The tension between a digitally networked, screen-based experience of the world and a physical, more tactile experience has never been more acute. My works reflect this fragmented reality by combining painting on canvases with screens, tablets and other electronics and materials. The painted portions of my works function as images but also as symbols of oil painting itself, pointing toward painting’s capacity for slowness, its complicated history and its unique physical presence. At the same time, through at turns revealing or concealing wires and electronic components within works I encourage a consideration of the physicality of old and new media devices, and the transience of extant formats.

The problems associated with contemporary media are existential problems for our species. These challenges include the environmental impacts of digital waste and data storage, the role of algorithms in reducing human agency, and disruptions to psychological and biological rhythms due to unprecedented use of screens in daily life. My hope is that by looking at painting as a form of media technology we might see contemporary forms of media more objectively. Finally, my works seek to celebrate the unexpected creative possibilities within our tangled technological and art historical milieu.

Pullman, Washington-based artist Joe Hedges creates captivating multimedia works that blur the lines between traditional oil painting and the digital world. His art explores the tension between our screen-filled lives and the physical experience, prompting viewers to question the impact of technology on our perception and environment. Hedges incorporates vintage electronics, screens, and everyday objects into his paintings, creating a thought-provoking commentary on the complexities of contemporary life.

Artsin Square

Artist Statement

Instagram: joehedges

Website: joehedges.com

Joe Hedges

Hi Joe, tell us about your background. How and when did you first start to create?

When I was a kid growing up in rural Southwestern Ohio my parents thought I was going to be a priest! Apparently, I often had a “far-off look” about me – I spent a lot of time outside by myself just observing things. It was the 80’s. I had a lot of freedom and few distractions. Like many other artists, I have been creating for as long as I can remember. Around age ten or eleven I realized that I was interested in drawing a lot more than the other kids were, and I began to have a suspicion I was an artist. I hadn’t met a real artist yet but I had a vague idea of what artists did and how they moved through the world and so I believed I probably was one myself. I was right. Since then I have been fortunate to find time and opportunities to experiment with a lot of different things, from drawing to writing rock music, painting, new media and finally the multimedia work I am making now, which combines a lot of these different interests.

How do you begin to work? What is your process like?

Beginning to work is always the hardest part, isn’t it? My process is a bit idiosyncratic. Sometimes I will begin with an idea for a piece, whereas other times I’ll begin with a found object and try to figure out how to incorporate it into a piece or build a work around it. For example, I may find an old stereo or a PVC tube or just some random thing that sparks my imagination. From there I might connect the object with an idea from a book or a song or something else that’s drifted into my life. Next, I’ll photograph the object and make digital sketches to consider what to do with it. Paint on it? Build a custom stretcher to hold it? Incorporate it as an installation? I always start with a lot of different possibilities. A lot of the experimentation gets worked out digitally so that I can be more efficient when I start working with paint and physical materials in the studio.

Your work combines traditional painting techniques with contemporary digital elements. Can you discuss how you navigate the intersection between these two mediums, and what inspired you to explore this hybrid approach?

I studied oil painting in college in a relatively traditional program. I always loved rendering and playing with paint. I have also always been interested in media in general. I grew up with those beige blocky home computers, and like a lot of nerdy teenagers at the time I taught myself HTML. Later on I found myself creating both paintings and new media works and exhibiting them together. Through doing exhibitions I started to see the formal and conceptual connections between seemingly disparate pieces. The more I thought about this the more it seemed like a natural progression for my work: merging painting with new media installation.

You mentioned that the painted portions of your works serve as both images and symbols of oil painting itself. How do you balance the traditional aspects of painting with the incorporation of digital and electronic components?

I do like the challenge of trying to take things that might not normally go together and seeing how I can make them fit. But I think what I am searching for is more of an intentional and meaningful conflict rather than a balance. When I first started making this work it was very intuitive and surprising, even to me. Now I think I am a bit more deliberate and I start out thinking about the formal elements. For example, I may take some small element of a device as inspiration. Maybe the device has a blue sticker or maybe the volume knob has an interesting shape. Then I will see how I can use that color or that shape from the device to inspire imagery, and consider what the imagery might mean in relation to the object. Lately, lately I’ve been trying to take imagery inspired by traditional Renaissance portraiture and disrupt it somehow – this is what I mean by painting as a symbol of painting. It’s kind of hard to get around that, around expectations for painting in the popular imagination. And so I like to sort of begin there as a way to play with what we expect from painting. Ultimately, the work ends up as a digital photograph and is shared on social media, and there’s something kind of funny to me about that loop. The objects I incorporate into my works have a kind of residual utility when they become elements in a digital photograph: they end up denoting the size of the paintings they accompany, much like the inclusion of a ruler, soup can or a quarter does in photos you might find online of used objects for sale.

Could you elaborate on how your artwork reflects the fragmented reality of our digitally networked world? How do you convey the tension between the screen-based experience and the tactile experience?

That tension between the screen-based and tactile is so acute these days that I simply need to show an electronic thing together with a non-electronic thing and people will get it. We are all hyper-aware of this persistent tension in an everyday way because of the near-constant pull of our smartphones. These devices desperately crave our attention. They ping and yearn. And we return their affections, even as we feel we are being coerced. Some of my works comment on this specifically, but some just point to it in a subtle way by simply showing painted things near, around, within or in front of devices. I’ve enjoyed incorporating older devices lately. Although they’re still electronics, do not surveil us in the way our phones do. So there's nostalgia there, but more than that I want to comment on the present. The slightly older devices point to a time when constant corporate surveillance and algorithms weren’t part of daily life.

Disciple, oil on panel with stereo, 20x20, 2023

You mentioned the consideration of the physicality of old and new media devices within your works. How do you incorporate electronic components into your artwork, and what significance do they hold within the context of your themes?

There’s three main ways or genres I’m exploring now. First, I make these large, multi-paneled combine paintings that also incorporate other media and consumer goods. I call them Hypercombines. They are the wildest and most challenging of my works to make, to ship and probably to understand. Their significance is that they speak directly to how technology mediates our perception and experience of the world around us, and just how complicated and confusing things can be. Thes second way is by creating custom wooden substrates. I’ll create a wooden panel then very carefully measure a device, then use a CNC router to cut a window in the panel that houses the device. These works point to the almost sacred reverence people have for painting and especially figurative oil painting and kind of poke at that in a whimsical way. The third way I incorporate electronic components is the most direct – sometimes I’ll simply make a painting on an obsolete device such as a DVD player or a receiver.

The problems associated with contemporary media are central to your artistic exploration. How do you address issues such as digital waste, data storage, and the impact of algorithms in your work?

A lot of the themes I’m interested in such as digital waste, the costs associated with data storage and the role of algorithms, these are almost invisible problems. When you throw something away where does it go? When your internet comes into your house where is it coming from, exactly? Where is “the cloud”? What does that algorithm actually do? And so to me it's interesting to make visual art about things that are supposed to be invisible, things that corporations and governments are actually incentivized to hide. If these problems were more visible they would be harder to ignore.

Your statement touches on disruptions to psychological and biological rhythms due to increased screen time. How do you explore these themes visually, and what reactions do you hope to evoke from viewers?

I have been using some of the same electronic devices in my works for years. Some of these screens have logged many many months of constant use in different galleries. I was honestly surprised at just how long the devices have lasted. Of course this isn’t something that is explicit in the work, but it makes me think about how we are always urged to upgrade long before our devices have stopped working. I think there’s this misperception about “planned obsolescence” being a physical problem. This is now more of a cultural problem, at least to me. There is basically no end or limit to the amount of time we can spend on screens, and hopefully this is something that viewers of my work consider.

By viewing painting as a form of media technology, you aim to encourage a more objective perspective on contemporary media. Can you discuss how your artwork prompts viewers to reconsider their relationship with technology and media?

It’s a tough moment for media and technology right now and a lot of people are thinking about the things I’m thinking about. A couple decades ago, it seemed that digital technology promised to kind of liberate us from our bodies. Now it seems to me that what it has done has made us hyper-cognizant of what we are losing. When you ask people directly, they tend not to like their phones. But they spend all day on them! This is a new and unusual and troubling moment I think in the history of media. I am under no delusion that my art is going to have much of an impact on viewers in terms of lifestyle changes. I don’t think these are personal problems, they are massive structural problems. And for those issues we need big cultural shifts and probably legislation that keeps pace with changing technology, particularly in the realm of AI and algorithms for social media. But I do think art has the power to nudge us a bit in particular directions.

One of the reasons I started making multimedia work is that I realized how important the gallery experience was. I want for viewers to have to be present in their bodies and experience something. At the very least, I hope to provide folks with a great physical experience of art, and maybe it will serve as a reminder of how nice it is to be out in the world. A gallery experience can provide a sensory experience of scale and color and concept that you’re just not going to be able to get from your phone.

How do you see your work contributing to conversations about the environmental impacts of digital technology? What messages do you hope to convey regarding sustainability and consumption?

On one hand I greatly value the physical experience of going to see art. But on the other hand physical artworks necessarily use physical resources and take a toll on the environment. The best I can do is to use existing materials and objects when possible, and to use my work to draw attention to these issues and to the complexity of the world and of art-making today.

In terms of digital waste specifically, sometimes just paint on found electronic objects that might otherwise be in a landfill leaching toxic chemicals. The irony is that I can often find an old DVD player at a thrift store for cheaper than a new painting substrate at an art supply store! So there’s something simple and conceptual there, this idea that we are simply swimming in electronic waste and it’s often cheaper to use some recently obsolete tech than it is to buy a new piece of wood or canvas. Going to thrift stores has always been inspiring for me, and I like that I have found a way to make that part of my creative practice.

Your statement mentions celebrating unexpected creative possibilities within our technological and art historical milieu. Can you provide examples of how your artwork embodies this celebration of creativity amidst complexity?

A big breakthrough for me was the piece Cloud Control, a complex piece that includes videos, sound and painting. This piece is both celebratory of creative possibilities, even as it’s critical of aspects of tech. It features the behaviorist psychologist B.F. Skinner's instructional voice modulated by guitar effects pedals, creating a statement about systems of control and influence. The large oil painting portion of the work depicts clouds and sky - traditional natural imagery - yet it is integrated with flat screen displays running videos of artificial software interfaces, fusing the physical and digital realms. This interplay speaks to how technology mediates our perception and experience of the world around us. I hope the piece prompts a consideration of the increasingly granular ways we exercise control over our reality through technology, as well as the control technology itself exerts over our psyches and behaviors, often below our conscious awareness. All that is in the piece, a lot of negative and heavy stuff. Yet, it’s depicting a beautiful day. The sky is blue. The clouds are billowy. There’s questions embedded in there about what our devices are for. What could they be for? There’s optimism. I want this complexity in my work as I think it mirrors the contemporary world.

Finally, what do you hope viewers take away from engaging with your artwork? How do you envision your work contributing to broader discussions about technology, media, and contemporary society?

Right now a lot of creative energy is being put into figuring out ways to extract data from people and track them. And a lot of energy is expended just doom-scrolling, swiping, and yelling into the void of cyberspace. That’s all a big misuse of human ingenuity. Making art, and especially weird art, has always been a subversive act. Right now it’s vital to use our human desire to innovate and to express ourselves in novel ways.

Ultimately, through viewing my work I hope viewers walk away with a chance to reflect critically on art and technology, and on the forces that “work us over” to use Marshall Mcluhan's phrase. In an era where so much innovative potential is funneled into optimizing corporate metrics, my practice is about reclaiming art's capacity to imaginatively reshape how we understand ourselves and our technological milieu. I imagine my work contributing to this discussion about the human-machine relationship and our imperative to regain agency over the tools we've created.

Describe a real-life situation that inspired you.

I had a student in a drawing class years ago who had suffered an accident and learned they would be in a wheelchair for the rest of their life. I hadn’t been teaching art for long and was admittedly nervous when they explained to me that they were just relearning to use their body and their hands. I spent the first few weeks of the course trying to come up with ways to accommodate the student by allowing them to use digital tools to complete their assignments. These tools were somewhat easier to use. But the student began to push back. And eventually I realized – we realized together – that what they were after was not even about producing good artwork. They wanted to draw. To feel the pressure or the pencil and paper and the texture and the mess of it all, to be in the physical struggle of it. And so that’s what the student did. We abandoned the digital tools.

Many years later I still think of this student often. Of course, I am inspired by new digital tools and processes. Technology has been a part of my creative practice for a while. And today we suddenly have these AI tools that can create wildly imaginative images with the push of a button. And yet, day after day, artists get out of bed and go to the studio and they paint and draw and sculpt. And I know artists, we will continue to work this way. Not necessarily because we want to create a compelling image or a groundbreaking work but because we enjoy the process, the challenge of working with our minds and bodies to express ourselves. It’s our nature.

AccuracyYouCanTrust, oil on panel with blood pressure monitor, 22x22, 2024