BY: BOOKMANS

Aaron Wilder is the featured visual artist for FIGHT CENSORSHIP 2007 at Bookmans Phoenix. We ask him about his views on censorship, his influences and inspiration, and his self-created art movement, Conditionalism.

Aaron Wilder is Arizona-bred, a native of Phoenix who holds a Bachelor's of Art in International Affairs and Art History from Northern Arizona University and is currently pursuing a Masters of Arts in Global Affairs and Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale. He also creates dynamic, multimedia visual art, and is part of the Sonoran Arts League, the Arizona Artists Guild, and OUT Arts Alliance. And starting this month he will be volunteering with Equality Arizona.

You can find Aaron at his website and Phoenix Art Space. His artwork will be on display in the Phoenix store's community room throughout the month of September.

What is it about visual art that often makes it a target for very public, heated debate and censorship? Is it purely because it's a visual medium? Or is it something deeper?

Visual art brings up a very heated debate on censorship purely because it is harder to censor than literary art. It is in your face, typically without your choice or prior approval. So, to an extent, it is simply because it is a visual medium. There is also something deeper, though. Images wield an immense amount of power. Today's world is a very image-based place. Even when we read words, they conjure images in our minds. This is why art has historically been used very successfully as propaganda. The Roman emperors did this and people continue to use art today to sway public opinion. On the other hand, art can also subvert efforts to control public opinion, which leads to censorship.

A lot of your work provides commentary on politics, religion, and sexuality. Why is it important to express yourself on these issues through this medium? And have you encountered any resistance or hostility? When creating a piece, do you ever think, "This will offend someone"?

I would say that people encountering my artwork see what they want to see, whether they enjoy the color and aesthetics or find some sort of personal anecdote to relate to or see a political statement that motivates them. I view my job as an artist to generate a conversation between an entitled inanimate object and a person. A lot of people see very different things in my artwork than what I see, which I think is very healthy. As for resistance, I have been rejected by artwork display venues because they have viewed my work as too extreme or radical, which I don't understand. Some people have expressed anger over my work, but I have yet to experience open hostility because of one of my paintings. I never intend to offend anyone. The way I look at it is that if anyone finds my artwork offensive, it is because our society prefers people to be closed-minded.

Some of your work incorporates a lot of iconography and words, while some is very abstract. Most, if not all, is very bold, colorful, and graphic, with a lot of texture. What materials do you use? And where do you draw your inspiration from?

My main medium is mixed media, which I really like because of its ambiguity. The more vague, the greater variety of possibilities. The main materials I use include acrylic paint, paper, and ink. In a nutshell, I use whatever I find that I think might be interesting to incorporate into art. I have a whole set of drawers full of clippings, pieces of styrofoam, and other found objects. As for inspiration, I draw upon my own experience and how I perceive the world to be. There is a lot going on in the world, so I have plenty of inspiration.

Is there a particular style you prefer? Particular artists who have influenced you?

I have no preferred style, but I like abstract art. I am a staunch fan of Modernism and all the art movements comprised within. The major artists that have influenced me include Francisco Goya, Rene Magritte, Edvard Munch, Hannah Höch, Christopher Wool, and the Guerrilla Girls.

What is your artistic statement? The driving philosophy behind your work?

My artistic statement is summed up by the tenets of Conditionalism. Right now, my statement on Conditionalism, my own art movement, is on display in the Phoenix Bookmans' community room with my artwork:

My work is the work of a new art movement: self-proclaimed as Conditionalism. This new movement has been created with various ideals, including:

1. While Conditionalism has to be, by definition, contemporary, since it is taking place now, it is a Modernist art movement. Most artists recognize Modernism as dead, mutated, or irrelevant today, but modernity is continuous and is ever-changing. My work is more stylistically and ideologically similar to Modern Art than to Contemporary or Post-Modern Art.

2. Conditionalism is the embodiment of moderatism in depicting subject matter. It is my view that art too naturalistic and art too abstract skew the purpose of the work and either devalue the message or keep the message inaccessible. Therefore, instead of work being polarized, visual delivery of themes uses abstraction, expressionism, symbolism, and other methods to place Conditionalist Art in a gray area.

3. The title is the most important part of the artwork. Again, moderatism is used here. Titles of Conditionalist work will lie in a gray area between the poles of titles that solely explain what is already seen in the work and titles that number a work of art or leave it untitled to strip the recollection of this art as meaningless.

4. Conditionalism contends that the point of art is to speak to people visually and interact with them. Whether a piece is personal, political, social commentary, or fictional, its purpose is to have individual contact with each viewer. Therefore, the artwork may mean different things to different people and evoke diverse reactions. This is the beauty of art.

5. Conditionalist Art speaks for itself. The meaning to the artist in each piece of work is sacred and relevant only to herself or himself. All a viewer needs to know about the meaning of the work is the title and all they need to see is the work itself. Meaning is subjective to each individual interacting with the art. Therefore, no explanation will be given by the artist.

6. Conditionalism does not make distinctions as to what art is or is not. Anything self-proclaimed as art is recognized as such. Nothing more, nothing less.

While my work is primarily in acrylic paint and mixed media, any art form from prints to sculpture to writing to music to architecture can be Conditionalist.