Historically, clay, fiberglass and metal have been foundational in my work. More recently, wood has been incorporated. Figurative and anthropomorphic subjects are a mainstay. My pieces are driven by formal concerns; whatever meaning a given audience assigns them is their privilege. Occasionally, however, I will indulge in narrative. My themes change: antiquity, anonymity, nostalgia, impotence, fertility; requisitely so do my influences. Exposure at a young age to the American comic book was a formative encounter which influences much of my work to this day. When asked about the choice of Campbell's soup cans as subject matter, Warhol simply responded, “I ate it every day growing up...”
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Stan Lee, Bob Kane, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, while not household names like Picasso, Mozart and Elvis, may arguably have had as much impact upon Western society as the aforementioned. The West has a long legacy of heroes, both mythological and actual. What Lee and his contemporaries gave us however were not just “mundane” heroes, but ultra or super heroes. Not gods, but flesh and bone. Omnipotence within clay vessels. As much works of the imagination, passion and talent as that which flowed from any paint brush, quill or pelvic gyration. The success of the genre at the box office (http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/) attests to the fact that it resonates with a modern, global demographic, as does Takashi Murakami's work.
My work at this point revolves around a created/fictitious/vicarious autobiography; a universal aspiration to be more than one is. Unlike C.R. Millard's Shark Girl, my fear isn't death itself, but a life unfulfilled in a world where, as the writer of psalms, Job and Jeremiah lamented, “...the wicked prosper...” The frustration of insignificance, disempowerment and futility rages daily in my mind. Who wouldn't don the power of a god... the physique of Hercules... the beauty of Venus... a red cape... a green ring... a yellow lasso...?
On one hand, superheroes can personify the best of humanity; on the other, they can serve as overt, poignant symbols of the excessive failure of humankind. For me they embody the joy of imagination and power of creativity as well as the bitter regret of an impotent, unfulfilled destiny; another face in the crowd, another statistic, the anti-superhero.
Anish Kapoor has said, “Artists don't make objects. They make mythologies.”
I am borrowing one type of mythology to create another.
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Stan Lee, Bob Kane, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, while not household names like Picasso, Mozart and Elvis, may arguably have had as much impact upon Western society as the aforementioned. The West has a long legacy of heroes, both mythological and actual. What Lee and his contemporaries gave us however were not just “mundane” heroes, but ultra or super heroes. Not gods, but flesh and bone. Omnipotence within clay vessels. As much works of the imagination, passion and talent as that which flowed from any paint brush, quill or pelvic gyration. The success of the genre at the box office (http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/) attests to the fact that it resonates with a modern, global demographic, as does Takashi Murakami's work.
My work at this point revolves around a created/fictitious/vicarious autobiography; a universal aspiration to be more than one is. Unlike C.R. Millard's Shark Girl, my fear isn't death itself, but a life unfulfilled in a world where, as the writer of psalms, Job and Jeremiah lamented, “...the wicked prosper...” The frustration of insignificance, disempowerment and futility rages daily in my mind. Who wouldn't don the power of a god... the physique of Hercules... the beauty of Venus... a red cape... a green ring... a yellow lasso...?
On one hand, superheroes can personify the best of humanity; on the other, they can serve as overt, poignant symbols of the excessive failure of humankind. For me they embody the joy of imagination and power of creativity as well as the bitter regret of an impotent, unfulfilled destiny; another face in the crowd, another statistic, the anti-superhero.
Anish Kapoor has said, “Artists don't make objects. They make mythologies.”
I am borrowing one type of mythology to create another.