Whether it be a coping mechanism or a pause to share something unique to our experiences, my work helps ground me in a way that words or other actions do not. It is my quiet voice that hopefully creates a moment of pause for some of our shared experiences or questioning of those forces greater than ourselves.
ARTIST STATEMENT
"Restraint" A New Suite of Smaller Portraits
In this suite of new works exploring the figure and imagined space, I was interested in the unseen forces, amalgams of our imagination, and meditative states of our own minds at work. In a continued period of polarization, isolation, and reactionary values, I was interested in how we each, in our own way, find ways to tap into our coping mechanisms and ability to quiet a perceived whirlwind of instability surrounding us. Using lines, shapes, and colors are active in how they surround and intersect the figure.
Like most of my work, I am interested in attempting to visually define, for myself, the unseen forces of our physical, mental, and spiritual experiences in a fantastic manner. In the 90s, I sought to make work that made HIV something that I could see as a physical sculpture so I could better grapple with the threats it posed to my life and mental health as a gay male. I am reminded of my Graduate mentor saying, "It's interesting. Your fears are so deeply felt that your work is a physical manifestation of the unseen." Perhaps, if I look back over my oeuvre, I can see this from my youth to the present. I seek to define both the beauty and the darkness of our fears and wonder. From the ephemeral nature of something so pleasing as a flower to the vulnerabilities of aging and disease, my work is an attempt to ground me and find understanding.
I also see my work as a practice, a product of my yearning to teach the physical techniques and processes of art making and the long-held power of the visual arts as poetic voice. I hope to inspire the students where I teach. I like to remind them how culturally artistic practice is not only beautiful but necessary. Whether it be a coping mechanism or a pause to share something unique to our experiences, my work helps ground me in a way that words or other actions do not. It is my quiet voice that hopefully creates a moment of pause for some of our shared experiences or questioning of those forces greater than ourselves.