Rustic Room

Operating similar to Period Rooms at museums across the country, Rustic Room recreates a geographic (rural) and stylistic (rustic) context with a vignette of objects, tools, furniture, and accessories. However, rather than displaying real objects this work utilizes electronic neon signs to operate as the real substance. In Rustic Room, sign-value takes precedence over use-value. This approach employs Pop Art methods to adversely communicate an iconology of simple American lifestyle. This work is aligned with what I term as ‘bumpkin aesthetic’ —a combination of the awkward and unsophisticated with the ideals of artistic validity. ‘Bumpkin Aesthetic’ is a method of combination with a conflicted nature that simultaneously conjures both high and low cultural practices.