Pietá, 2008, Mixed Media on Canvas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baptism, 2008, Mixed Media on Canvas 

I won the Curator's Choice award at Momentum this weekend. It means a $500 cash prize and a 5 day trip to Paris! It's still sinking in but I feel so amazing to have my work chosen. I couldn't believe it when I heard it.

It lightens my heart that the perceptions I have about the world are not necessarily shared by me alone. Art is a mirror that we hold to the world. The reflection is us. Thank you to Paul Medina and George Oswalt for the honor of recognizing my struggle with that truth.

A new version of the site is in the works. Hopefully, you'll see a little less blog and a lot more art.

I'm working on a couple. Or something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saint, 2007, Mixed Media on Canvas 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SKU, 2007, Mixed Media on Canvas 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nativity, 2007, Mixed Media on Canvas 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Requiem, 2007, Mixed Media on Canvas 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Been a while, eh? Blogging is tough work. Especially if you're busy and wrapped up in life.

Anyway, lots of stuff going on. Dad's having a show.  I'm heading to Buffalo in a few days to see what there is to be seen. When I get back, there'll be tons more excitement: Joe Slack's soiree, The Velvet Monkey II, Bookbeat, Thirty One Deuce, etc., etc.

Suffice to say it's good to be back.

So, I've got an art review published in the new issue of NONZine. I feel pretty good about that. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. Go get a copy now, you idiot!

In examining the root of my work I've discovered that a huge source for my inspiration, pacifism notwithstanding, is not violence itself but rather the banal aspect of the inhumanity. I seek to explore the point when violence becomes not something to be feared and reviled but another meaningless stimuli, no different than a car commercial or a particular brand of toilet paper. Life has been washed from these images with the cleansing action of insatiable consumption . I hold them up as the danger of simulation, the insidious waste water that comes with repetition and dissemination. The work illustrates a chilling complacency and tacit approval that can only come from numbness. I seek to break the chain. I want to reclaim the power that this imagery should rightfully wield. When murderous war has become as disturbing and as disgusting as the catalog of its consequences I will have achieved some modicum of satisfaction.

I haven't been painting as of the past week. It's one of those slumps where every step feels wrong. They seem to find me fairly infrequently but they make for a serious soul searching when they do appear.

I always attempt to make artistic hay from the ashes of the events around me. No matter how brutal the truth, no matter how despicable the act that drives my spirit, I always try to make something that will serve as a stepping point towards enlightenment, both for me and for my viewers.

I know that I've got things coming to me. Things that I don't deserve, probably, but things that I think I've earned. Try that on for a contradiction. I try to see the end of the path, the final steps in the dance routine that I haven't learned.

Every artist has these weeks. I tell myself this and stare at the attempts that surround me.

Onward. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heaven is…, 2007, 22.5×30, Mixed Media