Artist Statement

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Artist Statement

For an entire generation, the United States has been in combat operations in the Middle East.  War Canvases grew out of my realization that younger classmates had lived their entire lives with the US at war with Iraq. There’s a ubiquitous war culture that is accepted as normal mirrored in fashion, art, advertising, and communication. It has become a landscape of American culture and history. War Canvases isolates and brings the normalcy of the war to another cultural level where it can become “dis-illusioned.”

The Wall and Steel I-Beam are critiques of the academic institution. The Wall plays with material specificity, re-contextualizing the material of the wall as painting and re-contextualizing the painting itself as material of the wall. Begun as a commentary on the walls where art is shown, it asks what makes art space valuable and wanted. Acting as a perfect trompe l’oeil, the painting is only activated by the wall on which it hangs. The painting acts as a camouflage playing against the wall, just as Steel I-Beam plays against the supporting structure of Richards Hall. Steel I-Beam supports nothing but it’s own weight and playfully acts as a metaphor of the institution.

The answer to disillusionment is compassion. My videos are an antithesis to this disillusion highlighted in my installation of War Canvases. I look at the weak, the ignorant, and the old to understand my relationship with family and society.  First Amendment Art Project ironically explores what people value at the institution of the university and what we will give up to feel secure in our convictions. In Red Coat my mother “performs” her vulnerability as the isolation of old age contrasted with the joy of living. Understanding Mother questions memories and the importance of memories as essentials of life. It is compassion for others that connect us to our humanity. I call on the viewer’s humanity as an answer to the inhumanity that permeates our culture.

Works on the Walls (Clockwise from Right)

American Landscape, Stretched Desert Battle Dress Uniform (DBDU), 2010

American History, Stretched Army Duck Canvas, 2010

American Portrait, Stretched Digital Army Combat Uniform (ACU), 2010

The Wall, Panel rolled color of wall on which it hangs, 2011

Sculpture

Steel I-Beam, Wood, 2010

Video

First Amendment Art Project, Digital Video, 2010

Red Coat, Digital Video, 2010

Understanding Mother, Digital Video, 2011

Homosapien sapien

There is only one kind of people in the world. There is no black. There is no white. There is red. There is no brown or yellow. There are no men and there are no women. There is only homosapien sapien. Many of my colleagues and classmates are seduced by trans-humanist topics and images of cyborgs, and demons. Often I see or hear of themes in art involving the Seven Deadly sins, like it’s cool or trendy to portray them. What could be more cool than championing society and culture rather than tearing it down? Greek philosophers were the sources early in my culture that spoke of temperance, wisdom, justice, and courage. Christian philosophers were some of the sources that spoke of faith, hope, and charity. These are the qualities that built an entire civilization. Aren’t these ideas more exciting and cooler than “sins?”

In the following video clip, humanity is defended on the argument that I and you are human and must defend  our humanity against people who would deny it of us. The main event start 2:50 into the clip. I think the monologue by the host would be an excellent background to an artistic montage of views of humanity, weak and strong.