Statement of Research
I investigate the
spectacle of contemporary culture, focusing specifically on forms of masculine
performance and collective experience using sculpture, audio/video and
photography to inject politicized commentary into my work. First harvesting images from the
digital reservoirs that surround us, I then alter these images using both
digital and manual methods. By
de-familiarizing viewers’ expectations, they can be moved to reevaluate the
content and the context of what they see. My earlier works about our collective
fascination with professional sports (steroid usage in Major League Baseball®,
fatalities in Nascar®) have primed this current interest in making art about
popular music and fan cultures.
My work often
hinges on specific, historically documented moments in which there is an
identifiable change of state.
These pivotal moments become the starting points for my investigations
of singular and collective experience. These investigations often proceed by
contorting and/or expanding the original moments through video and time-lapse
photography. Since the work deals with contemporary forms of idol worship, I
intend viewers to experience the intense emotional relations that fans develop
with their icons. It induces
viewers to inhabit what might be called fanspace: a highly charged ambivalent
state that oscillates between sympathy and criticism, love and disgust. The work is driven by my sincere love
for and identification with the subcultures it represents. Simultaneously, elements of punk aesthetic
and attitude seed the work with dystopic implications -- suggesting our civilization is in deep decline.
