knownunknown_unknownknown is a collection of works that considers the question of how we make sense of the world around us.  How do we form knowledge and a view of reality, and what knowledge do we suppress? What role does culture, memory, and art have to play in any of it?

People keep trying to get a handle on what’s happening. There’s a fear that others are hastening to make startling connections among the raw material, tracing lines between points we didn’t even know existed.1

What do we know?

“...We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know...”

This statement, made in 2002 by noted war criminal Donald Rumsfeld, concerned the lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups. His words seems to refer to risk and our understanding of it, but could also be thought of in terms of knowledge and understanding - Known unknowns being things we are aware of but don't understand, and Unknown unknowns being things we are neither aware of nor understand. In this context, they can be compared to two other categories - Known knowns: things we are aware of and understand, and intriguingly, Unknown knowns: things we are not aware of but do understand or know implicitly. The concepts had long been used in security and intelligence circles in an analysis technique referred to as the Johari window. They used it as a technique to help people better understand their relationship with themselves as well as others.

Psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek characterised that fourth category, the unknown known, as that which one intentionally refuses to acknowledge that one knows — the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values."

Many of the pieces in this exhibition begin in a domestic setting. Bedsheets, curtains, envelopes, raincoats, bin bags, moonlight in the garden. But over time these everyday elements, by some sleight of hand, are turned inside out. The artist is looking for something, and it is hoped that by parsing their everyday existence as art, that some deeper understanding of the world will arise. Art as the accomplishment of knowledge in action. The unformed intuition in your head has gained concrete form. If I make better art will I have a better understanding of the world, and vice versa? If I have a better understanding of myself, will I make better art, and vice versa?

Irish artist Mark Swords, writing about a piece in a recent exhibition of his work, said “...I can put anything I want into my paintings apart from all the things I won’t let myself.”

What will I not let myself paint?



1Seth Price, Teen Image, 2009, Self Published