Current series:
What does it mean when we speak about self or the individual? The two series of paintings that I am concurrently working on are intertwined at the level of their conceptual content. While visually distinct, the base impetus of their creation is to speak on levels of social and personal construction. On one hand, they discuss means of individual construction of identity. There are components that come from environmental influence, both past and present, acting as forming factors, such as Religion, Art, politics, and pop-culture. As well as components that are self-driven, such as the decision to create a persona to present to the external world and disguise the individual in favor or an ulterior, exterior image. On the other hand, the paintings discuss factors that are intended to confuse the individual or society at large, building on a separation of subjective experience and its surroundings. One example is the use of resin to create an actual distance between the drawing on top and the painting below which, in turn, casts a shadow onto the underlying painting. Ultimately, the intention of my work is to explore how we are simultaneously influenced by, and the impact we have on our social environment.
In the creation of these paintings, I implement multiple styles to emphasize a point or create a separation of objects within the image. I borrow from art history to utilize a language that we already understood at some point in the lineage of culture, albeit a potentially in the form of pastiche, to speak to the contemporary. The intention is to simultaneously create the appearance of dissonance and a type of disguised relationship.
Older:
My work is the creation of a scene that we all individually and cohabitate. It is the "static" representation of the modes we choose to put forward into the world. The edifice of our perceived best self. My paintings contain different styles of material application to separate and enhance the varying levels of intention within the image. The realistically rendered head is to represent the person as they are. The 2-dimensional, cartoon shapes the head looks through are to represent punching bags that we create as the ultimate outward appearance of ourselves. Finally, the remainder of the composition is to depict the spectacle of our existence with references to pop-culture, philosophy, and art history, i.e., the allusion to a fair peep board as the background.
I am concerned with existence and the creation of pertinent, meaningful information. Information does not necessitate meaning and meaning is in short supply. We live in a world that is constantly producing information, but we cannot necessarily rely on every piece of data as truly significant.
The information that constitutes meaning does not necessarily import the importance of meaning itself. “We think that information produces meaning, the opposite occurs. Information devours its own content. It devours communication and the social.”[i] When we place too much information ahead of the content it purports to stand for, we lose any meaning that would make for a viable social utility.
[i] Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, pg. 80
What does it mean when we speak about self or the individual? The two series of paintings that I am concurrently working on are intertwined at the level of their conceptual content. While visually distinct, the base impetus of their creation is to speak on levels of social and personal construction. On one hand, they discuss means of individual construction of identity. There are components that come from environmental influence, both past and present, acting as forming factors, such as Religion, Art, politics, and pop-culture. As well as components that are self-driven, such as the decision to create a persona to present to the external world and disguise the individual in favor or an ulterior, exterior image. On the other hand, the paintings discuss factors that are intended to confuse the individual or society at large, building on a separation of subjective experience and its surroundings. One example is the use of resin to create an actual distance between the drawing on top and the painting below which, in turn, casts a shadow onto the underlying painting. Ultimately, the intention of my work is to explore how we are simultaneously influenced by, and the impact we have on our social environment.
In the creation of these paintings, I implement multiple styles to emphasize a point or create a separation of objects within the image. I borrow from art history to utilize a language that we already understood at some point in the lineage of culture, albeit a potentially in the form of pastiche, to speak to the contemporary. The intention is to simultaneously create the appearance of dissonance and a type of disguised relationship.
Older:
My work is the creation of a scene that we all individually and cohabitate. It is the "static" representation of the modes we choose to put forward into the world. The edifice of our perceived best self. My paintings contain different styles of material application to separate and enhance the varying levels of intention within the image. The realistically rendered head is to represent the person as they are. The 2-dimensional, cartoon shapes the head looks through are to represent punching bags that we create as the ultimate outward appearance of ourselves. Finally, the remainder of the composition is to depict the spectacle of our existence with references to pop-culture, philosophy, and art history, i.e., the allusion to a fair peep board as the background.
I am concerned with existence and the creation of pertinent, meaningful information. Information does not necessitate meaning and meaning is in short supply. We live in a world that is constantly producing information, but we cannot necessarily rely on every piece of data as truly significant.
The information that constitutes meaning does not necessarily import the importance of meaning itself. “We think that information produces meaning, the opposite occurs. Information devours its own content. It devours communication and the social.”[i] When we place too much information ahead of the content it purports to stand for, we lose any meaning that would make for a viable social utility.
[i] Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, pg. 80
