Artist Statement
Atmospheric obscurations, ornamental overlays, and skewed geometric or uncertain perspectives are the foundation for the appropriated virtual environments used to create my traditional and digital 2D, 3D, and 4D bodies of work. Much of the work focuses on a melancholic longing for the past in a pre-9/11 American culture viewed through a lens of Romanticism. My greatest effort to keep my memories of that era from fading are in digital conservation where I download, categorize, and archive massive amounts of referential data. This consists of collecting several terabytes of digitized books, magazines, music, film, videogames, and television shows. With the stockpiled data, I then serve as a curator and use the appropriated material to collage virtual environments that either become or inform my work.
Within the compositions I make, images and objects merge together in a way that I compare to a flash-back or flash-forward trope in a television program. It describes a precise moment of transition between two periods of time where scenes become overlapped and softly fade to the point of being practically indiscernible from each other. I'm inspired by the narratives that emerge between disparate imagery combined together and use it as a surrogate to communicate coded autobiographical anecdotes. Any self-identifying references are substituted with a generic pastiche in an effort to lean towards non-specificity so a viewer can project multiple interpretations while my secrets are kept safe.
While a portion of my work is digital viewed through a screen or as a projection, the majority of my work is hand-painted. I believe the greatest form of reverence is through careful attention and as a conservationist, to make a faithful physical copy is the highest form of respect. I think of my paintings as complex tributes of love for the original source material. The autobiographic titles I give my paintings function as a form of epitaph. It's a bittersweet acknowledgment of the passage of time.
Within the compositions I make, images and objects merge together in a way that I compare to a flash-back or flash-forward trope in a television program. It describes a precise moment of transition between two periods of time where scenes become overlapped and softly fade to the point of being practically indiscernible from each other. I'm inspired by the narratives that emerge between disparate imagery combined together and use it as a surrogate to communicate coded autobiographical anecdotes. Any self-identifying references are substituted with a generic pastiche in an effort to lean towards non-specificity so a viewer can project multiple interpretations while my secrets are kept safe.
While a portion of my work is digital viewed through a screen or as a projection, the majority of my work is hand-painted. I believe the greatest form of reverence is through careful attention and as a conservationist, to make a faithful physical copy is the highest form of respect. I think of my paintings as complex tributes of love for the original source material. The autobiographic titles I give my paintings function as a form of epitaph. It's a bittersweet acknowledgment of the passage of time.
