ARTIST STATEMENT
I use the formal and narrative aspects of drawing to show violence, emotion, heroism and distortion. My figural subjects are invented and fictional, however are given postures, actions and forms and that describe very real human struggles. Photographic references taken from media coverage of protests, detainments, and combat have become central to my recent work.
I am inspired by distortions of the body found in cubist and futurist sculpture, surrealist paintings, greco-roman statue, and modern video games. Reduction to stones, metallic blocks, and weathered forms makes each subject reminiscent of action figures and statuettes. They often lack the emotional outlets of faces or accurate human anatomy, instead marked with stony deformations and injuries while engaging in desperate battles or riotous congregations that reference the protest, militance, and tribalism of even the world’s most ‘developed’ regions.
Recognizing these issues in both my nearby surroundings and faraway countries is what motivates me to draw from them. From my safe, Washingtonian position though, often observing by screen or picture frame, they become merely images. The tremendous anxiety and emotion surrounding political scares, domestic violence, and interpersonal enmity become a high-speed, escapable storybook of digital rectangles. Abstracting the figures from these scenes into faceless, emaciated statues or geometric playthings is my attempt to objectify them in the same way that popular media, entertainment, and political channels transform real people. I try to reconcile a somewhat alien experience of the present with the excitement of action and storytelling.
I am inspired by distortions of the body found in cubist and futurist sculpture, surrealist paintings, greco-roman statue, and modern video games. Reduction to stones, metallic blocks, and weathered forms makes each subject reminiscent of action figures and statuettes. They often lack the emotional outlets of faces or accurate human anatomy, instead marked with stony deformations and injuries while engaging in desperate battles or riotous congregations that reference the protest, militance, and tribalism of even the world’s most ‘developed’ regions.
Recognizing these issues in both my nearby surroundings and faraway countries is what motivates me to draw from them. From my safe, Washingtonian position though, often observing by screen or picture frame, they become merely images. The tremendous anxiety and emotion surrounding political scares, domestic violence, and interpersonal enmity become a high-speed, escapable storybook of digital rectangles. Abstracting the figures from these scenes into faceless, emaciated statues or geometric playthings is my attempt to objectify them in the same way that popular media, entertainment, and political channels transform real people. I try to reconcile a somewhat alien experience of the present with the excitement of action and storytelling.