SNAP Artist Tees – Jensen Kimmitt

It’s impossible to accurately describe anything with much certainty, maybe especially so for the self. What is that I am? We all experience mind related form and this form appears to be very convincing. Wordly phenomenon may exist or may be an illusion constructed by the ignorance blocking the soul from realizing itself. Are what the senses experience real? Is what is experience itself? Is itself even itself? Hold up, lemme get up out the cave. Is it possible to have a false self that you believe to be the true self? Is there a self overlaying what we believe to be self that is so real it’s become more real than we can comprehend as real from such a perspective? Consciousness, the omnipresent experience-being that we all seem to “be” is beyond description. Even writing about it at all feels impossible, yet we stay living and experiencing at all cost. Is life just the sensual hallucination experience of the flesh, or a kind of temporary, fear generated ignorance we cling to in order to distract ourselves from the totality of death? Another thing that is impossible to say with any certainty. 

I could have easily said that I am a he and that he that I am has existed for a certain amount of time and makes art. Edmonton. This likely would have just been a comfortable masquerade of the false self though. Is that good or just easier than doing this? Why would an artist, given the opportunity, forgo the opportunity to attempt the depiction of the ineffable? Does anyone really appreciate contemporary artspeak or is it just a dogmatic formality to unhold artworld bureaucracy? Is that good? If not, how much baby should be thrown out while refilling the tub? Should the tub and baby be thrown out permanently? Is that even possible? At any rate, adherence to such a thing might be more tedious than reading whatever this is and trying to give it the sincerity of consideration necessary in order to perceive anything of value within this realm. Is this why we are at such a distance from ourselves? Do we use any leverage we can to run further away from ourselves? Or am I that which I am and only ever will be. Where does that leave you?

What can a biography be? Can it be conscious of itself? What good is even a name if it only does a disservice to the divine mystery behind it? Why would you even care to read a biography if it at least doesn’t have the courage to try and overcome the half truth of it’s acceptable formatting and reach for something beyond just a career in art? I don’t even want to be alive let alone contribute to this unending banality we all share. I just am. I thought art was going to be a way out of the necessity of survival through market participation, not the worst and most obvious and dehumanizing self peddling we all seem to get ensnared within. Where does one draw the line? 

This all frightens me, whatever I am or I do. And as much as you might like to distance yourself now that you have gotten this far, you’re likely not too different; illusion or not. I can’t control how you perceive me, but to try to convince you that I’m something I’m certain of would only be a disrespect to both of us. Why would you want the art if you don’t like the biography? Maybe the art should stand alone without this, but then how do we bludgeon the artist into an easily commodifiable symbol arranger we use to signal to others we support or not depending on how it makes us appear? Does the art become bad if the biography is bad? Does the art become more or less mysterious if the identity of the artist is obfuscated to the point of incomprehensibility? Do the insane (who largely exist outside of formality, comprehension and society itself) make more or less “authentic” art? Or do they just struggle to convince us they can be seen as worthy of sincere consideration because they become too difficult to be briefly explained given our own limitations of social consciousness? 

I want you to believe I’m an incredible, disembodied mystery; not just in the field of art but as a being in any capacity. I want it not only for myself, but to act as a universal light that evaporates your (and anyone’s) own doubt, keeping you (us) from realizing that you (us all) too, are not also just like me, but also actually just me. I am you. I am. ——> ________. ——> ”                .” ——>               .  ——> 

Who’s to say what the art is, means or has value for in relation to this madness we take too seriously. You can put it on a shirt and sell it though. 

Jensen Kimmitt, Is/Is

Edmonton, AB, Canada 

June 23, 1988

Doesn’t know what is going on

Doesn’t want to know what’s going on