Self Portrait
Made With Cheap
but Fancy Looking
Camera, Edited
by Pirated Software
Photoshop on Desktop,
541x726 pixels, 2006
First, an overview of the installations is necessary. Most begin with a booth large enough for one person to enter. Inside, the booths are scented with oils, cleaning products, or little samples of food intended to be tasted. The viewer is able to touch everything from the painting to the title cards. Music plays in earphones that hang from a hook in the wall. The ultimate goal is to prolong the viewing experience. Those who do linger will ideally find themselves confronted with a flurry of impressions both emotional and intellectual.
Why do I go to so much trouble?
I do not pretend to have any mastery when it comes to painting and don't ever expect to. I didn't go to art school and have a terrible visual memory though most of the paintings are done without photographs or models.
It is this shortcoming in realistic talent and patience that has thrown me into the arms of other mediums in an attempt to convey a mood, a notion, a protest, a reevaluation of the commonplace, a challenge to the sacredness of the gallery setting, and so on. The paintings combined with the installations, music of my own improvisation, and the long titles create an expanded vocabulary in which to explore a variety of modern and timeless subjects.
At the same time, erecting a multi-sensual environment allows me and the viewer to explore the synchronicity of sensual combinations. For example, opera feels inappropriate in a dive bar but perfectly matches the interior of the Vatican where all the statues seem to serenade the worshippers. Snappy jazz is perfect for the New York City streets but isn't quite right on a snow-covered prairie. New York Pizza is just oil saturated cheese over thin bread if consumed anywhere outside of New York. Of course, these are my own opinions. But existing in an overstimulated society leads me directly to the questions of whether these associations are learned or does inspiration create siblings in different mediums?
Hopefully, people will be too dazzled by the many stimuli to be interested in my professional resume. I have no real training in music or art, only a BA in history and english. My sole exhibition was in an East Village bar where the drunks complained the paintings depressed them.