Obfuscation and Aesthetics: Patterns Inside Envelopes

There are a multitude of patterns inside envelopes that I find both aesthetically pleasing and nostalgic, and that I associate with bills, banking, insurance, and the endless responsibilities of adult life. These envelopes serve to capture capital from individuals and direct it toward large corporations. In other words, one must reconcile the beauty and nostalgia of these patterns inside the envelopes with the secrecy, obfuscation, and unchecked greed of the financial institutions of late capitalism/neoliberalism, or “capitalism with the gloves off.”[1] They can be appreciated purely formally for their visual appeal, as one escapes into their pattern, and/or for their sense of obfuscation in a highly financialized and stratified global society where individuals’ lives are dominated by large multinational corporations, characterized by wealth inequality and laissez-faire governance with regressive taxation and shrinking social safety nets. The end result: a permanent neo-feudal underclass with limited social-economic opportunities and the erosion of democratic institutions.

[1] Chomsky, N. (1999). Profit over people: neoliberalism and the global order. New York: Seven Stories Press.

These envelope patterns have been screen-printed onto 1-meter x 1-meter canvases.

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