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blitzed out This was sort of an intermediary series. A time to not be precious, not think and just paint. From my last series, which was all about overstimulation, I think I got.... totally overstimulated. I became blitzed out, in my personal life, in my artistic life, in my professional life. This is the start of a new way of working for me. These paintings are all kinda Alla Prima. Alla Prima is the way of painting where you execute the painting in one sitting. These are essentially Alla Prima, with a few poignant and key strokes made after the fact- if you know anything about comedy, that is called punch, punching up the script with some funnier jokes. This is punching up the painting with some essential gestures. Things that I have been thinking of are quotes I hear on the radio or things I have read over time that stick in the corners of my mind. A Japanese calligrapher takes years to learn their craft, yet just seconds to execute their work. Marathon runners speak of the need to relax as an important component of their success. A writer explains that if you always write about what you know, how will you get anywhere. I' trying to work like an Archer-- the painting either hits the mark or it doesn't. If it does, it is allowed to stay. If it doesn't, it's gotta leave, no hard feelings. From the ashes of the stress of my being will come a series of new paintings, hahaha. | |
 headshots card - jprippedtheirfacesout 10" x 8" Oil on Canvas |
 lemon bag - thenettingissopritzy 15" x 12" Oil on Canvas |
 luau bag - decorationsleishulaskirtflowers* 26" x 35" Oil on Canvas |
 flower store card - justbecauseiwas* 26" x 35" Oil on Canvas mounted on Wood |
 LED - forskincareorgrowingweed* 26" x 35" Oil on Canvas |
 double LED - alsoforskincareorgrowingweed* 26" x 35" Oil on Canvas |
 electrical - obsoletejumble* 26" x 35" Oil on Canvas |
 heart frame - insertreplaceinsertreplace* 25" x 35" Oil on Canvas |
 power source 1 - thecalmbeforethestorm* 24" x 36" Oil on Canvas mounted on Wood |
 power source 2 - pulledintoomanydirections* 22" x 26" Oil on Canvas |
 natural depression bouquet - hesallergictoit* 22" x 26" Oil on Canvas |
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| Connect/ Intersect | |
 chargers* 36" x 31" Graphite on Paper |
Connect/Intersect is my most recent project, a collection of paintings and drawings revolving around the ideas of over-stimulation, obsession, addiction, and consumption.
I feel overstimulated. All the time. With everything. Currently there is a buzz in society that does not quiet. The barrage of information and stuff is barely palpable to me. Being so "connected" to the world through smart phones, email, text, and social networks, I feel I am addicted to manic movements of checking. The most difficult thing for me is quieting of the mind. I am presenting these feelings of inner stress by creating works of domestic interiors filled to the rim with products culled from the internet and catalogs. These rooms become so congested with appliances, they become a detriment, and negate the simple function of the room. A bed so filled with sleep aids, stress-relievers, bed-top loungers and comfort hey leave no space for sleeping, stress-relieving or comfort. The kitchen, filled with margarita machines, tri-style lasagna pans and hot dog cookers, leaves no room for actual food preparation. There is no space for a human in these rooms, physically or emotionally. All products are machine made, having no trace of human craft, yet become anthropomorphic-- a stand-in for the human squeezed out of the picture. The series is titled Connect/ Intersect, because I tried to think of a reason why this stuff is made, and it is all made...Try this experiment. Think of a product, not matter how ridiculous. A Musical Vase? An Electric Martini Shaker? A Farting Teddy Bear? Google it. Someone is already manufacturing and selling this product. So I guess the reason this stuff is made is because we buy this stuff, we want this stuff. But why do we want this stuff? I wonder if it is because at its core, we are trying to connect. We are trying to connect With a world that moves at the speed of lightening. We are trying to connect with a first world society that to keep up, we must live the rat race, running on the eternal wheel, buying useless crap we don't need just to feel we are part of the society. And we all do it at some level-- we may not buy some of the more fringe ridiculous items shown in these paintings, but surely we all have our own version of things our subconscious conned us into buying. And we can blame it on the power of advertising, but in the end, we convinced our own selves of this products ability to make us more beautiful, more exotic, more happy, smarter, or nicer. Each products represented is machine made, but in the works are painstakingly painted and drawn without any technical aids or expediters. This is not because I am fundamentally against these processes, but for this project in particular, there is something funny about a dignified approach of still life painting (with all its labor, love and history imbued) for a cheap plastic machine made product that will probably never be used and will be donated to GoodWill in 7 years. And as I started thinking about our emotional connecting by purchasing these items, I realized that that was how these paintings were functioning as well on a formal level. These disparate bits of shape and color only became interesting as they connected with each other, the intersection of one product with another-- pitted against each other by angle or perspective, and by the physical connection of the paint. Where in space the two objects were meeting, in paint, wet on wet, was what was creating the beautiful interaction, and distinguishing it as painting, and not a graphic or illustration. These paintings are complicated, beautiful, disgusting, funny, and sad, nodding to contemporary pop and to older formal still life conventions. They are dark and moody but oddly joyful. They are filled with momentum, yet are frozen in space. They show the optimism of the future, but with the defeat of the present. They are very democratic and easily digestible; they do not take a knowledge of art to understand, and can be interpreted or viewed on some level by someone of almost any age. They are highly personal and emotional, yet do have a somewhat stand-offish manner. They let you in to a degree, but like the objects in the Art painting, all eyes are focused at you, but stare with a neutral tone. They are ready to let you walk up, but not ready to let you in. |
 booze* 52" x 54" Graphite on Paper |
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 bed* 24" x 19" Graphite on Paper |
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 bed (close-up)* 24" x 19" Graphite on Paper |
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 sex toys* 24" x 19" Graphite on Paper |
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 9:16 is the time* 8" x 10" Graphite on Paper |
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 minor mystical* 8" x 10" Graphite on Paper |
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 alarm clocks* 60" x 48" Acrylic and Oil on Canvas |
 fruit and vegetable appliances* 48" x 36" Acrylic and Oil on Canvas |
 exercise equiptment* 15" x 12" Acrylic and Oil on Linen |
 fountains* 8" x 10" Acrylic and Oil on Linen mounted on Wood |
 art - love, magic, time and rainbows* 82" x 60" Acrylic and Oil on Canvas |
 art (close-up)- love, magic, time and rainbows* 82" x 60" Acrylic and Oil on Canvas |
 art (closeup) - love, magic, time and rainbows* 82" x 60" Acrylic and Oil on Canvas |
 art (closeup) - love, magic, time and rainbows* 82" x 60" Acrylic and Oil on Canvas |
 cat urns* 60" x 60" Acrylic and Oil on Canvas |
 cotton balls* 8" x 14" Oil on Linen |
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Battles and Hybrids Common threads that have consistently run through my work are opposition, hybridization, laboriousness, industry, violence, overabundance, humor, paranoia, fear, and beauty. The series that I was involved in are psychological and fantastical vignettes of nature versus technology hybrids. It was titled Psy-Fi: Battles and Hybrids, a psychological fiction that explores unrealistic future conditions of our world from a hyper-realistic-dreamy-aerial-view inside our imagination. These images of hybrids or battles depict a scene where the natural or technological victor is unclear, or shifts from scene to scene. Using only graphite, they serve as a photo-literal account of a poetic-figurative world. | |
 Lazer vs. Tree, 2006** 90" x 70" (framed), Pencil on Paper |
 Building vs. Stalagmite, 2007** 65" x 47", Graphite on Paper |
 Birds vs. Microwaves, 2007** 50" x 50", Pencil on Paper |
 Engine vs. Clams, 2007** 33" x 29", Pencil on Paper |
 Ralph vs. Nuclear Power Facility, 2007 (in process)** 30" x 28", Graphite on Paper |
 Satellite vs. Mountain, 2007** 2" x 3", Pencil on Paper |
 Biohazzard vs. Desert, 2007** 4" x 10", Pencil on Paper |
 Blackhawk vs. Glacier, 2007** 2" x 3", Pencil on Paper |
 Blackhawk vs. Glacier II, 2007** 5" x 6", Pencil on Paper |
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