Shedding It's Skin

The Sleep of Existing Conditions Produces Monsters, 3 ft x 6 ft, 2011

During a walk in Monroe Park in Richmond, VA, I had noticed an events bulletin board with advertisements bulging five to six inches off of it. It was the culmination of 18 years of flyers, coupons and messages from residents in the Richmond area. Not knowing how far back some of those advertisements dated, I was compelled to tear off as many layers as I could. With the help of some friends, we took a couple crow bars to the boards and pried off enough advertisements to find the date 2002. Upon further investigation (digging and tearing) we found that there was an additional nine years left after the removal of our first layer. Discovering the charred remains of some of the advertisements we concluded that around the time of 1996, the bulletin board was set ablaze. One of the most interesting things about this project was how much we learned about the city of Richmond and the evolution of its social culture in the last 18 years.

With the play on words of the Francisco Goya piece titled, “The sleep of reason produces monsters,” in my head, there was interesting parallel between that work and the technology of our day. The layers of this bulletin board, that I had stripped away, became less and less important to the residents of Richmond, VA upon the emergence of technologies such as Facebook. The advent of computer based social networking has caused us to be lazier in regards to our physical activeness in our daily lives. There’s no longer a need to post flyers on event bulletin boards when there’s such things as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter.

My involvement in the removal of these artifacts had come at the perfect time. There had been rumors of the renovation of Monroe Park which most certainly meant the removal of this bulletin board. The image above depicts three of the four panels of the bulletin board from their back sides exposing the years of decay and numerous rusted staples.

Detail of The Sleep of Existing Conditions Produces Monsters

A Dialogue Revealed: Part IV

Translation, Mixed Media on Paper, 36 x 36 in, 2011

 

Tearing, sanding, painting, carving, pasting, peeling are actions that I commonly use in my work.  Interestingly enough, even though I’ve found and applied all the information in my pieces, I’m always surprised to see what I’ve uncovered. My paintings and prints become a reflection of the world around me, yet at the same time, become a world in itself.

Switching Slates of Mind, Mixed Media on Paper, 3 1/2 x 10 ft, 2011

 

The idea of decay and deterioration has become more and more abstracted in my work as time has passed. In Switching Slates of Mind, the piece marks the moment in which I decided that I no longer needed to use graffiti as a crutch, or a foundation upon which to act. Layers have become more important and the focus of the work. This build-up of materials acts as a foundation from which I can then work “backwards,” digging back into and recovering lost information. The act of finding becomes an important part of the process.

A Dialogue Revealed: Part III

 

Ill-Advised Priorities No. 3, No. 15, No. 16, Silkscreen and found materials on paper, 3 x 4 in, 2011

I created the Big Ten Print Exchange in the Fall of 2010. Inspired by the Big Ten Athletic Conference, this print exchange was intended to display the diverse talent of the ten universities that are part of that institution and create a dialogue amongst them. Coincidentally the Big Ten has some of the most respected printmaking programs in the country. These schools are as follow:

University of Wisconsin Madison, The University of Iowa, The University of Indiana Bloomington, The Ohio State University, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Nebraska Lincoln, Penn State University, University of Minnesota, and Purdue University.

The images above are a few of the prints that I made for this exchange. I used priority mail stickers as a foundation for which I could apply materials and marks. Each print is unique.

Untitled, Intaglio, Mixed media and found objects on paper, 4 x 6 in, 2011

In 2011, I had the opportunity to travel to St. Louis for the Southern Graphics Conference (SGC), it had been the first time I have attended a SGC event and it blew my mind. This city was full of printmakers and I must have seen thousands of prints in the course of four days. It reinforced the notion of how important printmaking was and how it was still alive and kicking. It brought back that sense of pride I had during my undergrad days. Upon arrival back in Columbus, I chose to make a series of etchings using found materials.

A Dialogue Revealed: Part II

            Storm of Broken Dialogue I, Mixed Media on Panel, 5 x 8 ft, 2011

One of the biggest pieces I’ve ever created, this painting was made using two separate panels of wood. The first, larger of the two was found aside of the engineering building at the Ohio State University. The second panel was found at the woodshop on campus. It was cut down to fit the other board and to be used as a functional door and crypt with three hinges. The piece that was once two dimensional had now moved into the 3D realm.

             Storm of Broken Dialogue II, Mixed Media on Panel, 5 x 5 ft, 2011               

 Unhappy with the first stage of Storm of Broken Dialogue, I painted the whole piece with white latex paint, covering almost all the information.

A Dialogue Revealed: Part I

          Introduction, 48 x 48 in, 2010      


 Graduate school brought about many changes. I was no longer afraid to take chances to experiment and to make mistakes. With printmaking, I began to care less about the traditional printmaking fetishes such as clean large borders, editions and archivalness. Painting became increasingly more important to me. During this period working representationally my work was in the middle of both worlds, abstract and representational. Inspired by the work of Jose Parla, Robert Rauschenberg and Franz Kline, I began to create paintings that mimic the surface of urban environments.

 

      Struggle For Existence, 48" x 48", 2010

During my first quarter in grad school, a colleague lend me an electric sander. Upon receiving the tool, I began to sand back into the layers of my paintings. Working reductively had been a relatively new concept to me, most of my paintings were built up through layers and the idea of carving and sanding back into them never occurred to me until now.  The carving and sanding in these pieces are evident.