Thomas Wilder writes: “‘These Inadvertent Marks’ is a photographic investigation of scuffs, stains, residue, scratches, holes, and blemishes. These marks are byproducts of human intention. I consider those marks that are largely deemed trivial and peripheral as a means of challenging ordinary value systems and surrendering to the unconsidered. I make these photographs through a process of discovery and close consideration of urban streets, private homes, airports, bathrooms, alleys, and storefronts. This artistic and theoretical inquiry considers these marks as meaningful texts and beautiful objects, despite their lack of design and authorial intention; it asks questions of the constitution of signs, establishment of meaning, excess of intentions, and interpretive instability. Through an investigation of these inadvertent marks, I look to highlight the uncontrollable flux, turbulent drift, and recalcitrant shifting of the status of meaning.
“I hope that those who view my work would slow down; to question the very structure by which we are able to move through the world at such great speeds; to pause and consider the things which we have chosen to ignore through our hierarchies of value and utility, things that have plenty to say but to which we have kept our ears shut and eyes closed.”