Fortune Cookies

"Fortune Cookies" is part one of "The High Plains," a series of four collage projects. Christian Conrad contrasts two different worlds to show what is gained, and lost, when perspectives merge. The connections made between images are both natural and alien; the figures' interactions are, like ours, both forced and sincere. At times, the images are haunting, with visceral need evident with every line. But then two figures will bond so comfortably that all difference vanishes. This, too, mirrors us all, with the seemingly innate human insistence upon relative boundaries and definitions. Through collage, "Fortune Cookies" shows how interrogating what is fixed can help us understand what we are.