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Ingrid Dabringer Puts the "Art" in Cartography

By Ray Hu - August 15, 2011

Canadian artist Ingrid Dabringer has recently come to our attention for her map paintings, in which she reinterprets the vagaries of plate tectonics as portraits and dancers with a vaguely fauvist flavor.

She recently shared her creative process with the Huffington Post (their Travel section, no less): "I'm constantly pulling focus with my eyes. Sometimes I focus on the color, other times topography, other times black lines or colored lines or the landmass. I also let my eyes go blurry and focus sort of behind or in front of the map. Once I sift out a contour I don't lose it. In the end, I see all of the separate elements all together."

In addition to the autobiographical or otherwise narrative facet of her work, Dabringer also draws on the existentialist notion of meaning and becoming:Humans have an insatiable need to find meaning—even from that which is fleeting or random. The more meaning we assign, the more we triangulate our location within ourselves and our communities.

The figures found within the lines of the maps illustrate this quest for meaning. The distortions make the images appear to be "in process"—of becoming, enduring, finding, reacting—our thirst for narrative is both quenched and piqued. We all move about on our own maps—in real time and space—as we become, endure, find, react—our life takes shape and we interpret our meaning."

The artist's statement in her Etsy profile is rather more poetic:as humans we cannot help find meaning where there is possibly none these maps are both profound and meaningless kinda neat just my attempt at triangulating our presence here on earth