Meanings in the Colors

Have any of you noticed anything in common between my last few posts? Specifically these three? I'll give you a moment to look them over again below.

Drop The Game

Chasing all the Riches

Laugh at all Costs

If you still can't find it, let me point it out for you. Over my past few pieces I have been kind of obsessed with the symbolism behind... a barcode. In our world today, the barcode is commonplace in almost anything you do. Whether that is picking up groceries at the supermarket or buying a shirt online or even going to a music festival. The barcode is almost like a gatekeeper to most of life's activities. This idea of a world controlled by consumerism just stuck with me and pushed me to see how I could incorporate it into my pieces. However, I wanted this to be done in a very discrete, unnoticeable fashion rather than pushing it into the face of my audience.

For example, my piece "Drop the Game" places a barcode on the body of a shotgun. While easily seen, it is also put in plain sight where many may glance over it. In reality, this was placed here deliberately to speak about the price that weapons sometimes force upon lives. This is also meant to symbolize how much we value guns much more than other things in the United States.

This same train of thought follows into the next piece, "Chasing all the Riches." In this pieces, you can see the barcode faintly on the right shoulder of this sculpture of a man. This is meant to compliment that fact that the man's eyesight is covered in gold. This combination of design choices was purposefully done by myself to convey our society's obsession with money and wealth. Again, it seems our culture values wealth over other aspects of life.

And finally this, sort of, three part series ends with "Just Laugh at all Costs." In this piece, I wanted to portray an image of ignorance. With the rude and rich in mind, it was supposed to symbolize how the some of the wealthy just care about how much money they have and just laugh at all costs to ignore real problems that they could be helping fix.

Overall, the meaning behind this barcode...

...is nothing! While I found the meanings above, you may find another. But I have to admit that when I was originally making these pieces, I implemented the barcode just because I thought it looked pretty cool and added that extra bit of detail I was looking for! All in all, sometimes art is just made to look cool and enjoyable to look at. However, it is very cool to see how each individual who views a piece of artwork could draw a different meaning from it. Everyone just has their own style of cool!

- Jared