Richard Garrison collects information from typically overlooked aspects of daily life. Observed data from places like big box stores and parking lots are systematically transformed into comparative, chart-like abstractions that restructure elements of color, space, and time. This distilled interpretation of the palette and design of the American landscape attempts to reveal aspects of humor and absurdity within our surroundings and lifestyles.

Circular Color Schemes is an ongoing series derived from weekly advertisement flyers distributed from “big box” and chain stores.  Each drawing is structured according to a systematic interpretation of a selected weekly ad design.  Components such as text, graphics and imagery are measured and mathematically converted into proportionally represented drawn wedges within a circular grid.  The relative length of each wedge is determined by the number of colors and values observed in each item.  Colors of graphics and advertised items are carefully matched and hand-painted onto corresponding wedges using watercolor and gouache.  Color wedges within the circular grid are then labelled with graphite to identify the product imagery, pricing and graphics from the weekly ad.  The resultant display of impersonal content intimately deconstructs, transforms and emphasizes the often unobserved palette of American consumerism.

By using rigorous formulas and systems as methods to objectively dissect the scenery common to the suburban American landscape, a distorted presence of utopian ideals is exposed in these modern achievements of convenience and living. Interaction with this seemingly impersonal content reveals an ambiguous sense of intimate distance within the inherent banality of consumerism that infiltrates almost every aspect of my personal life and household,