These paintings can be interpreted in many ways.... If anyone wants to see these paintings as an expression of our culture's reverence for the cell phone and all things techno - I'm all for it because sure, that's part of it. Also part of the mix is the notion that these particular saints seen painted in Halo have been cannonized due to martyrdom. All fallen by electro-magnetic, radioactive whathaveyou. Although I'm not quite ready to commit myself to this aspect (too depressing) just let's just say I myself use a headset whenever I can untangle it in time and of late am paying particular attention to what's happening to the bees.

Working on "halo"
2007

Cell phone chatter and heart-felt prayer may seem to be incongrous even blasphemous but they stem from the same human need. The fear of being alone. In modern North America, as the culture of religion dies, as former believers convert to a new brand of apathetic agnostisism as quickly as the churches that once housed them convert to high-end condos, a hole is left. And we know how nature feels about vacuums.... The need to connect with something outside ourselves remains.

To pass judgement on the "quality" of cell phone comunication is extremely tempting. I eavesdropped for many many months, searching for the fragments that I would eventually type on to copper foil suggesting the both the lines of communication and the aforementioned electromagnetic whathaveyou. These out of context fragments also ultimately served to provide the titles of the pieces. As I revisited them, stabbing out the words on a friend's beloved baby blue manual I marvelled at how banal most of them were. (By and large people seem to use their mobiles for reporting just how far along on the streetcar they are and then they'll repeat this information 5 minutes later.) But then on the other side I also heard remarkably profound confessions. Remarkable in their profundity and that they were spoken aloud in public - available to all. We hate to be alone. We're reaching out to others, uncomfortable with silence and solitude and living in the present moment. Not only are we reaching out but we seem to need the scope of this reaching to be public, to be global - with as many witnesses as possible to our innermost thoughts and desires. Reality tv shows. Blogging. Facebook. And I'm putting cell phones at the top of the list. All these strike me as an expression of a desire to be more than a number among 6 billion.

Kirsten Johnson