Bud and Betty Micheels
student artist-in-residence grant

KAREN HEAGLE 1987-88

The investigation of the relationship of art and technology served as the theme of this artwork and aligns to my own creative needs. The works are very much my own vision of the relationship of art and technology which include popular images of our culture, inventions of devices that enhance the enjoyment of art (i.e. the phonograph), and performers in a drama telling stories of nuclear devastation. All the works reveal that technology can be counterproductive at the same time also being productive.

The triptych is a cumulative statement about art and technology. It brings the viewer to the dawning of technology and to the industrial era when man began to wonder where he fits in. The central panel of the triptych utilizes Adam and Eve's expulsion from paradise (as depicted in the Renaissance by Masaccio in his famous Expulsion). The figures in this painting represent two Stout students in modern garb and relate to Masaccio's figures. Paradise is represented by such modern conveniences as the television and the automatic teller machine. The angel being stabbed alludes to the angel in Masaccio's painting. The figures in the triptych walk beside the representation of the Student Center sculpture that symbolizes art, and the special character of art. Only the human mind can appreciate art, no machine can tell you what is good art, it is up to you, the viewer, to decide what pleases you. There is no right answer.

"Caution--High Decibels" oil on canvas