"the older, traditional ideas of private, isolated thoughts and actions - the patterns of mechanistic technologies - are very seriously threatened by new methods of instantaneous electric information retrieval, by the electrically computerized dossier bank - that one big gossip column that is unforgiving, unforgettable and from which there is no redemption, no erasure of early 'mistakes.' -

Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage, 1967.


In examining the mechanism of stress and anxiety, the "NEW AESTHETES" is a series of 3 figures aA visual representations of contemporary internet culture and the forced necessity of borderline obsessive participation. Over the top novelty, recognizible pop culture references and tactile detail are devices of visual seduction, where what appear to be hooded shamans of the "new aesthetic," swarthed inhooded draped black cloaks, boasting luxurious necklaces, are actually
replicate figures of Abu Ghraib captives. The necklaces, detailed, dripping, full of figurines, directly highlight the danger of novelty within contemporary culture. These ominous figures - although stately and beautiful - mark a dangerous point foretold by the work of both Marshall McLuhan in The Medium is the Message and Guy du Bord's Society of the Spectacle, noting that the integration of technology into daily life has turned contemporary culture into a "theater of the absurd." Information is exchanged and modified so fast by so many without regard nor awareness of the ramifications. In essence, the use of novelty and extreme speed of cultual change becomes the swinging pendulum itself; when we are unaware, distracted or completely engulfed by visual culture and novelty, we can see nothing beyond our own hunger for cultural turn over.

ANATOMY OF A HATER (showed in tandem with PURPLE REIGN) is a diagram tracking mutual histories of oppression and violence. What initially appears as a figurative body of an imposing thug, is actually composed of methods of oppression historically exercised on both homosexuals and Black Americans.

At closer inspection, each of these items carry duel meanings: purple (a color associated with homosexuality) bandannas (codified by both homosexual and gang culture) are suspended by nooses (pre-civil war hanging). The rosary is tied to both Black American religious participation and inversely homosexual persecution, and a primitive bat and a chain along with a crushed spraypaint can referencing both traditional hate crimes (flogging, beating) and the Matthew Shepard murder, 2998. Problems with addiction is noted with the ends of joints and empty bottles.

Although highlighing issues of mutual oppression, the staging touches on the danger of the "novel." The exposure and speed of technology tends to negate meaning with surface value, thus turning media into a pervasive machine of perpetuatual novelty. Oppression is propagated when those participating in media fail to recognize the significance of the images comprising the contemporary visual landscape. This love affair with distraction unfortunately condones a repetitive cycle of surface value, disguised as willing unawareness.

PURPLE REIGN (Berlin, November 2012) examines the parallel histories of Black Americans and homosexuals. What if within the hyper-masculine factions of American Gangs (the Bloods and Crips), a marginalized third gang of homosexuals arose out of the community? By recontexualizing images generally associated with each group, commonalities regarding hate crimes, flamboyance, hand signs and codified clothing appear. Images of voguing Balls held in early 1990's new york are juxtaposed next to gang members flashing hand signs, a mural of police intervention during the 1968 Stonewall Riots morphs into an image from the 1992 Rodney King Race Riots, what initially appears as an abstracted thug body is constructed from weapons of oppression and bandannas appear coded in the color purple.

This work ranges from a large scale mural (8 by 3 meters, roughly), wall-based installation, and a zine comprised of drawings and modified found images.

MEDIA MEDITATION is an ongoing series that looks at drawing as meditative practice. By willingly engaging in internet culture, there is a definite anxiety generated by the speed of cultural change and the necessity to engage in the mediation of online personality; a "hyper-individual." In sitting down and working by hand, pressures resulting from this online "look-what-i'm-doing" culture revert to repetitive action, negotiating only hue, form and tone.

Pigment, salt and bleach on paper. Berlin, May 2012.

I was invited to participate in ART BASE Berlin this last August. The event took place in abandoned Soviet Barracks, where the entire space was transformed into a makeshift cathedral space. I was able to build in (what I assumed was) the mess hall. Tapes from old Iraqi propaganda videos (found at the abandoned embassy) were woven through the space to visually close off the area. Other industrial materials found near by were used in transforming what was once a military-industrial space into a space of peace sanctity. This work was influenced by the rawness of the site-specific and use of nature seen in the installation of Pierre Huyghe from dOCUMENTA 13, where his work is installed around a park's compost heap.