Kahlil Robert Irving's large-scale collagraph sets the scene for fact and fiction to collide and coexist by simulating a bird's eye view on garbage brimming asphalt landscape. In Kahlil's printing process, the stage is set for human-made residues to float like jetsam on a multitude of (deeply embossed, fossil-like) layers, suggesting an ever-flow of traffic and consumption. However, the ghost-like color palette appears as dreamy as a memory, as intangible as the starry night sky, and as eluding as the mental image derived from the latest news story. The trompe l'oeil-Esque urban imagery remains an abstraction, a vague depiction of an unspecified place, universal in its densely textured vision of 'the street.' In contemplating this artwork, we are invited to meditate on the true nature of our existence and to question our meanderings in between the realities that we inhabit, touch upon, or ignore.
“COMING” ≤≥ “Going” [Movie & Murder] Imbedded Symbols + Cosmic Myths, 2019
Collagraph with found objects.
94 5/8 x 42 3/8 x 1/4 inches / 240.3 x 107.6 x .6 cm
