In Ted Larsen’s “Total Fabrication” exhibition, the artist shares the following insights into his seventh solo exhibition at Robischon Gallery. Larsen states, “We are born into a world not of our knowing. Everything we learn as a child will become the lens through which we understand the world. We are taught to believe in our perceptions and trust in our view of the world through those lenses. Our lives are mostly fabricated, as we invent much of it to stay in alignment with our teachings. When it all gets boiled down, we believe everything we think is true, even if it isn’t Truth. It’s often these beliefs that are disrupted. It’s sort of like discovering north on our compass only to later discover there was magnetic distortion occurring, altering our perceived positions of what we thought we knew of our world, ourselves, and everyone in it. This interference can have great sway or only a small tug, but we are all subject to being somewhat lost as a result of its effects. As we age, things either become clearer or become murkier. The only way to rectify this schism is to come to an understanding that, in fact, our perceptions of everything are somewhat askew and we might need new lenses through which to see the world.Art can be just that sort of lens. It can clarify. It can offer new ways of seeing and potentially, when it taps into our true nature, it can show us who we really are. Art is one of the greatest powers in our world. It can change who we are.This exhibition is a visual exploration of our perceptions, understanding how we perceive them through the materiality of the work made, and our relationships to them both. Various forms of geometric aesthetic expression and progressions are used along with many different types of materials in this exploration. Frequently one poses questions to the other. No answers are given. The viewers must decide for themselves what they are experiencing, whether it offers new understanding of themselves or gives fresh insights into their personal conditions. It is possible, but not prescriptive, meaning I don’t have specific intentions about what the viewer might take away.And herein lays the rub: as much as I make work for other people to experience, I really create it for my own personal illumination. It is not possible for me to make work in any other way. My creative practice shows me a lot about myself. I use that information in all sorts of ways. It helps me become not only a better practitioner but potentially a better person. It is a hard ask of the work to do this, but the work respectively complies. However, this should not be mistaken for me always liking what my work reveals. My work challenges me to slow down enough to understand what it is.