ART INSIGHTS Creating Wealth as a Successful Artist - John Dahlsen

scrubbing and foregrounding the sanitationof particular urban settings, and HelenMeyer Harrison and Newton Harrison, whodocumented the pollution of the Sava Riverin Yugoslavia, before devising a counterpollutionstrategy.) Soon, however, Dahlsengrew inspired by the objects he collectedto create sculptures and assemblages, sothat his practice came to combine walkingwith object and image-making.The objects yielded by the tide prompted akey question for the artist: how does onegive form to the formlessness of detritus?Dahlsen was well aware that the organizingprinciples he chose would determine themeaning of any work he created. He beganby sorting the found objects into material,natural or manufactured, then into colourand size, his process a self-reflexiveexamination of categorization.These categories suggested particularworks: totem poles constructed frombuoys or thongs, wall-based collagesof driftwood, and, eventually, coloured160