Callero maps altering perceptions of reality

 
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By: Monique Bos
Published: Friday, February 15, 2008

Brett Callero, a foundation studies professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design-Atlanta, traces his interest in the visual arts to piano lessons he took as a child.

“He hated those lessons and wanted to quit,” he said in his biography. “After watching him draw imaginary maps and flags, his mother made him an offer, ‘You can quit piano lessons … if you start taking art lessons instead.’ It was a deal.”

At age nine, Callero began to study drawing and painting. He continued his artistic studies in college, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in visual communication from the University of Dayton. After graduation, he worked as a graphic designer, art director and art teacher of both adults and teenagers.

Callero earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from SCAD in 2004, graduating magna cum laude from the painting department. He worked as a freelance graphic designer, sang for a rock band and served as a SCAD Radio deejay during his time as a student. He also painted a mural on the wall of the Turner House convenience store.

Since relocating to SCAD-Atlanta, where he teaches foundation studies and painting courses, he has continued to create work in a variety of media, including installation, painting, graphic design, fictional maps and “remakes” — “my name for my paintings that incorporate digital processes,” he explained.

The nature of his work reflects and comments on ways in which American culture transmits information and meaning, he said.

“Mediated imagery and filtered information are still prevalent throughout our culture. Fact and fiction are clouded by our news programs, where stories are assigned logos and theme songs,” Callero explained. “My work relates to language and contemporary sub-languages and how pop culture manipulates our vernacular. Along the way the true meaning of the word is permanently altered.”

He added, “Since the realm of thought relies on objective analysis, the remake process involves a critical stance … The remake process operates like the subject matter in the way it seduces the viewer with a glorious exterior and transposes them with a hidden agenda.”

In addition to drawing from popular culture, much of his work also combines a love of trivia, “an obsessive knowledge of world geography and a keen understanding of people’s thoughts and motives,” he said. “This unusual combination has evolved into [my] own kind of inclusive visual language. Call it a fictional version of non-fiction.”

His maps incorporate these elements, showing gridlike overviews of cities with waterfronts, parks, streets and other features that ultimately reference no specific place and therefore have no fixed meanings.

“What our culture considers reality is becoming less real,” Callero explained. “[P]eople should no longer accept meaning without an awareness of the context. Only then can it be established that all cultural definitions are inherently unstable. This instability means that there are no final answers and all factual information is relative.”

He encourages his students to engage in critical thinking about their culture and its messages, as well.

“I make sure my students use their observational and analytical skills to pay closer attention to what they like and dislike in order to transform an interest into something inspirational,” he explained.

Students in his 2-D Design course create a Thought Book, a mixed-media combination of journal and sketchbook that provides a forum for them to brainstorm and develop ideas. “The self-motivated student will discover that this kind of free-form creativity will help them subconsciously when they focus on a particular project or specific idea down the road,” Callero said. “Many students continue working in their Thought Books long after they complete my class.”

He emphasizes the importance for them of keeping in touch with their own creative inspiration and goals.

“I always remind students that in their future careers, they will most likely be paid to create something for someone else. After many years, this can be very draining if you don’t have something you make that you can completely call your own,” he explained. “Therefore, maintaining authority over at least a small part of your creative output is of the utmost importance to creative survival.”

Another assignment he gives his 2-D Design students is a Mediascape Research and Presentation project, for which they each take at least 100 photos using digital cameras. “Students are looking for evidence of design in the mediascape, which as we know is literally everywhere,” he explained. “This project is designed to make students start looking at their surroundings with an eye for design all the time.”

He added, “I also tell students that no idea is completely bad or totally useless. All bad ideas serve a purpose in the process of creation. All brilliant ideas are built from the pieces of failed experiments.”


View Callero’s work.