Brooklyn-based artist/designer Scott Albrecht has released a gorgeous new monograph of his deconstructed typography, sculptures, murals, and puzzle-like assemblages. I've been transfixed by Scott's work for a decade and I was honored when he asked me to write the introduction to the new book. Titled In Time, it's an objet d'art itself. Scott has a solo gallery show of his latest work opening this weekend at San Francisco's Hashimoto Contemporary. The exhibition, Holding Time, runs through November 26. From my introduction to In Time:
Over six million years of human evolution, we have become masters at pattern recognition. Our brains are astoundingly adept at comparing new stimuli with information stored in the deepest crevices of our grey matter. Pattern recognition is how we make decisions, learn, create, and communicate.
"Superior pattern processing is the essence of the evolved human brain," wrote Johns Hopkins University neuroscientist Mark P. Mattson in the publication Frontiers in Neuroscience.
We're so practiced at seeking patterns—searching for structure in the flood of signals coming our way, connecting the dots, trying to make sense of, well, everything—that we're usually not aware we're doing it. We can't help ourselves. And that's one of the many reasons Scott Albrecht's art is innately compelling—looking at it becomes a meditative act. The most powerful art shifts your perception of reality permanently. Scott's work changes your mind, quite literally.
In his paintings and dimensional woodworks, Scott applies his talent as a graphic designer to organize bold shapes into an evocative and uplifting visual language distilled down from written language. The exquisitely arranged forms have something to tell us. But what?
