Paintings and Sculptures > Construction Pieces

The Disquieting Monument to Southern Discomfort
Burned image on recycled wood, painted towel and broom
Dimensions variable
2014
Over the course of history the prison came to serve a variety of functions.  The prison serves as the state’s power to punish, rehabilitate, or keep certain undesirable elements away from society.  It also serves as society’s provider of cheap, near slave
Burned image on cut two by fours
72" x 72"
2012
Enjoy
Burned image on cut one by twos
33" x 33"
2013
To think of Pruitt-Igoe and the way it devolved from a utopian dream to ruin in a matter of decades is to spell out the downfall of socialism, on a much smaller scale of course, and to underscore the inherent flaws and shortcomings of the system.  This is
Burned image on cut two by fours
60" x 60"
2013
Lost Wisdom - Hemlock
Burned books, screws and tape on board
40" x 40"
2013
Foreclosure Blues I
Recycled house parts, wood, insulation, door and sheetrock
24" x 48"
2013
Two identical wooden shacks stand next to each other, one echoing the other in dimension, style and construction.  The two structures serve as a concept of where society draws a line between genius and madness, in this case, indistinguishable.  It is only
Recycled wood and charcoal
36" x 17" x 2"
2012
American society is unique in its interpretation of violence.  On the one hand, violence perpetrated by violent criminals and serial killers is shunned and condemned, on the other violence in form of revenge, no matter how debased and morally clichéd, is
Recycled wood, asphalt, paint and charcoal
34" x 14" x 2"
2012
Cumberland Asheville drawing charcoal
Repurposed wood, asphalt and charcoal
31x22x2
2012
One of the few autobiographical pieces I have ever produced, The Country Doctor is as much double portrait of me and my wife, as it is an allegory of things past.  The work should neither be taken as a nostalgic relic nor as a mockery of the now defunct o
Repurposed wood, glass, printed image, books
72" x 48" x 12"
2012
United States of America with Self-Desctructing Mechanism Attached Flag Power
Recycled wood, nails, electrical outlets, cords and plugs
Approximately 70" x 32" x 3"
2011
United States of America with Self-Desctructing Mechanism Attached Flag Power
Recycled wood, nails, electrical outlets, cords and plugs
Approximately 70" x 32" x 3"
2011
United States of America with Self-Desctructing Mechanism Attached Flag Power
Recycled wood, nails, electrical outlets, cords and plugs
Approximately 70" x 32" x 3"
2011
Front Porch Messiah Harold Camping Armageddon Rapture
Repurposed wood, pencil, book
Dimensions variable
2011
Chimera Repurposed Wood Recycled Art Artwork Sculpture
Repurposed wood, chicken wire, stuffed animal fur, charcoal, paint
Approx 36x24x16
2011
Chimera Repurposed Wood Recycled Art Artwork Sculpture
Repurposed wood, chicken wire, stuffed animal fur, charcoal, paint
Approx 36x24x16
2011
Chimera Repurposed Wood Recycled Art Artwork Sculpture
Repurposed wood, chicken wire, stuffed animal fur, charcoal, paint
Dimensions variable
2011
Stairway Heaven's Gate Mass Suicide Cults
Recycled wood, shoes, pencil, paint
Approximately 36" x 16" x 36"
2011
Stairway Heaven's Gate Mass Suicide Cults
Recycled wood, shoes, pencil, paint
Approximately 36" x 16" x 36"
2011
David Koresh Waco Suicide Cult ATF Millitia Movement New Light
Repurposed wood, plaster, chicken wire, light bulb, lighter, paint
Approximately 72" x 48" x 10"
2011
David Koresh Waco Suicide Cult ATF Millitia Movement New Light
Repurposed wood, plaster, chicken wire, light bulb, lighter, paint
Approximately 72" x 48" x 10"
2011
Randy Weaver Last Stand Tea Party Millitia Movement Waco
Recycled wood, window, hardware, plaster, asphalt, paint
Approximately 36" x 36" x 6"
2011
Escape from society sometimes brings that which we fear directly back into our lives. The Weaver family was assaulted by the ATF and the subsequent siege of their property fomented the rise of the American Militia Movement which established itself followi
Recycled wood, window, hardware, plaster, asphalt, paint
Approximately 36" x 36" x 6"
2011
To the Unknown Painter Homage to Anselm Kiefer
Recycled wood, plaster, asphalt, paint
Approximately 36" x 20" x 8"
2011
Eye Gouge
Recycled wood, screws
Approximately 36" x 36" x 36"
2012
Ghosts
Wood pallet, screws, plaster, asphalt, paint, pencil
Approximately 36" x 36" x 4"
2012
All the Famous Walls
Acrylic and asphalt on foamboard
2012
All the Famous Walls
Acrylic and asphalt on foamboard
2012
All the Famous Walls
Acrylic and asphalt on foamboard
2012
All the Famous Walls
Acrylic and asphalt on foamboard
2012
All the Famous Walls
Acrylic and asphalt on foamboard
2012
All the Famous Walls
Acrylic and asphalt on foamboard
2012


Contemporary American culture is wrought with intricacies and idiosyncrasies based around its delicate historical mythology and power structure. The overlooked, unspoken, infamous and forgotten are all integral part of that history, yet seldom acknowledged as such. My new work attempts to confront American culture and its idiosyncrasies with a skeptical eye toward popularly accepted dogma and to the facts of the extreme fringe, while never remaining completely neutral. That which most would rather leave alone I find the most interest in, not because of a morbid fascination, but because history of any kind has two readings, that of the profane and that of the secret, that of the exoteric and of the esoteric. But both drive the wheels of history with equal force. Even a cursory reading of any American history book reveals that something is not quite right with the picture given. What we get are whole chapters missing, peoples forgotten, ideologies decentered or suppressed. The picture given is at best incomplete and at worst an actual lie.
When confronting American culture and history, one has to begin with the question, what is American culture in the first place? The answer seems to be a history of space and stuff (objects, property, etc) which contains its absolute inverse, the unspoken history of lack and loss (spirituality, individual rights, etc). This opposition is itself driven by the strictly American concept of power, and the myth of growth at the expense of everything else. In other words, the American state, especially its new corporate version, constitutes the Freudian/Lacanian concept of the primordial father, whose power is diverted into its jouissance, its enjoyment, via the transgression of the ceaseless violation of his children. Its culture therefore is the object of the subject’s very enjoyment. These opposites and containments are a common thread throughout my work. I seek to show the thin line that runs between seeming opposites and how easily one emerges as a mirror image of the other.
As such, I reorganize and decontextualize the typically male chauvinist objects and materials (two by fours, insulation, etc) from their place of origin, the construction site, into the fluid and ephemeral worlds of art objects. My work tends toward the social and ecological concerns, in the tradition of Beuys, Jimmie Durham, Leonardo Drew or the Arte Povera movement, via the use of the ready made and recycled objects and materials. The use of fire further alters the state of the objects in an almost alchemical fashion. I use torches to draw into wood or paper, or open fire to burn down books and eventually refashion them into works that speak to the relations that the symbolic primordial father has to his children, either through openly grotesque displays of power such as book burnings (even in very recent times), torture and incarceration, to the more subtle but no less insidious prohibitions it exerts, like a ban on homosexuality, censorship, privatization of the commons and so on, while at the same time it promotes the spectacularized image of the land of the free and the brave. The work is an intervention, anti-monumental and anti-sublime, an assertion of individual determination in a world of increasing homogenization toward a self-perpetuating totality.