Omaha Art Story by David Williams • Photos by minorwhitestudios.com
Neither “This” Nor “That”
Defining the Indefinable in Thomas Prinz’s Collages
T
he idea of an artist tearing his work to shreds evokes images of soul-crushing
frustration and utter defeat, but it’s a requisite step in the unique creative process employed by collage artist Thomas Prinz. His studio space on Maple Street in the heart of Benson is littered with what are seemingly finished works, but these are instead merely the raw materials waiting to be sliced and diced and then reassembled. His instantly recognizable, signature look is typified by striated fields of vibrant color made up of hundreds of fragments cannibalized from perhaps dozens of individual source works. Correction…hold on a sec. Adding a second layer of irony to the proceedings is the fact that these seemingly “finished” works are almost always anything but. Most await the digital scanner to become giclée prints, ones that have the odd quality of at once affirming and denying any sense of texture or depth of field, elements that were so very evident before the printing process came into play. Confused yet? Then try this one on. Those now “finished” finished works? Not so fast. It is not uncommon for them to, in turn, become fodder to feed a new generation of descendants in forming a crazily convoluted family tree that suffers from an identity crisis, and an incestuous one at that.
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The ambiguity of it all, Prinz explains, is wholly intentional. “I seek an emergent quality in my collages,” said the architect who has in recent years shifted increasing amounts of energy into his widely collected collages and paintings. “These pieces aren’t meant to be about ‘this’ or ‘that,’ but are instead about both ‘this’ and ‘that,’ if that makes any sense. It’s a hybrid approach where each viewing reveals more and eventually, meaning—whatever meaning you want to assign to it—starts to emerge, to resonate. It’s a very intentional ‘unintentionalness.’” Not surprisingly, the same ambiguity dwells in the design of his singularly fascinating studio, a work of art in and of itself. “In designing and building this studio it was again about process, this time the process of architecture. It was about coming in with no preconceived notion of what it should be. Just as in my collages, it was about using layer upon layer…where line and form ultimately >> Continued on page 26 www.OmahaPublications.com