Ray Sohn

Similar to a jazz musician, I was attempting to build up an idiomatic language of my own out of the basic building blocks of lines and symbols, with which I could freely improvise. At the earliest stages of the project, this spirit of jazz improvisation is what inspired me to refine and advance the work in terms of technical dazzle.

Yet, after delving deep into the creative process, day after day, month after month, I began to notice repeating patterns and themes arising uncomfortably throughout the work. Patterns that reflected the inherit weaknesses and flaws in my approach and in myself as an artist. For the first time I began to think about the why, instead of the what. Instead of, "What kind of artist am I?" I wanted to know, "Why am I an artist?"

And I came to the conclusion that the creative act, as it is practiced today, is a highly abstracted method of manipulating and processing symbols formulated from a model of experiential data inside of our brains. To put it simply, art is an ingenious expression of an ever developing visual language that has existed since before I was born and will continue on after my death.

Once I realized this, the question of "Why am I an artist?" became totally irrelevant. I would never ask myself why I speak English. It's a given. And this revelation really put the work into perspective for me.

Pyramid Lake is a conversation with those who speak and understand the language of art from now and as far into future as the work can possibly survive.