Obfuscation and Aesthetics: Patterns Inside Envelopes

There are a multitude of patterns inside envelopes that I find both aesthetically pleasing and nostalgic, and that I associate with bills, insurance, and the never-ending responsibilities of adult life. These envelopes serve to capture capital from individuals and funnel it to large corporations. In other words, one must square the beauty and nostalgia of the patterns inside the envelopes with the secrecy, obfuscation, and unfettered greed of the financial institutions of Late Capitalism/Neoliberalism, or “capitalism with the gloves off.”[1] They can be viewed purely formally for their beauty, as one escapes into their pattern and/or for their sense of secrecy in a highly financialized and stratified global society in which individuals lives are subsumed by large multinational corporations.

These envelope patterns are screen-printed onto 1-meter x 1-meter canvases.

[1] Chomsky, N. (1999). Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and the Global Order. New York: Seven Stories Press.