Miscellaneous Debris

Miscellaneous Debris is book featuring paintings and drawings by artist Jerrin Wagstaff and includes an interview conducted by Austin Beck-Doss and an essay by Shana Nys Dambrot. Wagstaff’s paintings examine the nature of visual experience in the internet era and the anxiety of responding to a torrent of information. In this body of work, the artist draws upon images culled from news media, staged catalogues, stadium events, and stills from reality tv. For Wagstaff painting is an activity of response, interpretation, and physical reconstruction calling into question how or if we can we interpret authenticity any longer. Individual themes of the paintings drift between desire, loss, and identity. The painting “Mattek Sands”, depicting back to back US Open mixed doubles champion Bethanie Mattek Sands, raises questions such as ‘What does it mean to be winning in America?’, while “Aftermath 2”, utilizes the wake of destruction caused by wildfires as a metaphor for violent deconstruction and settling into new equilibriums. As a body, the works in Miscellaneous Debris highlight how our attempt to cherry pick from the deluge is both personal and universal, to each his own.