"The Future States
Paintings" use the Atlas as a kind of template, isolating aspects,
amplifying details, transforming pages full of textual information into purely
visual compositions. They take what was simply a small element of an Atlas
page, the map of the newly created U.S. state whose contours overlap those of
the existing country that has been annexed, and make it big. Other kinds of
visual information may also be included, such as maps of an existing U.S. State
of similar size. Thus for instance the new state of "Tunisiana" (created from Tunisia) is juxtaposed with the state of
Louisiana, with whom it shares a coastal location and a history of French
colonization. Or as in the new
state of "Chosen Again," an arrow and
target mark indicate the status of the former South Korea as an object of the
“Target Allies Doctrine”, whereby militarily dependent allies are absorbed as
states. The results are seductive
abstractions that remind us that desire is at the heart of both aesthetic and
geographic possession.
- Eleanor Heartney
