You may have seen these images before, on your eBay watch list or the screenshots you kept from 2014. They are things you cannot get rid of, but at the same time don't need to keep. “My Ears Ring When It's Too Quiet” is a serotonin boost for those who are lacking. Both Marge and Tristan draw from personal experience and the extremely familiar popular media that surrounds our everyday. Images that we see so often, that their presence loses meaning.

 

 

     With an overall scan of contemporary culture, Marge and Tristan both latch onto images that they cannot let go of. Signage or visuals that get stuck in your head, like that Education Connection song from the early 2000s, they build on recognizable cultural motifs and speak directly to their obsessive internet-driven generation. The rapidness and overwhelming nature of visual culture is then slowed by the act of painting- where deeper meanings are conveyed to viewers who patiently engage with the questioning of importance in the works. Imagery that may have been meant for pump-and-dump consumption is transformed into something that will last far longer. The innate “commonness” in motifs reminds the viewer that yes, they have indeed seen this before, {and there is nothing wrong with that.} The works try to overcome the nihilism or futility that comes with image making in a time when millions of images are made every day. How can we create something new when everything has already been created? A need to make the digital, physical, and give it importance drives the pair in their creation. In an exercise of trying to remember what was originally so magical to them about artmarking- they take a step back and simply paint what they like. Why do we read the same art jargon in every press release? Instead here is a picture of Juggles the Clown, enjoy.