Meta-Metamorphosis: August 2011

I'm the peace you've lost.

Entwicklungsfabrik (stingers)

\\worship your gods...spread your love\\

i am the ghost in your architectures

greeting committee (1986)

glory of your parentland

mobilize the corporations, mobilize the militaries

welcoming committee

deep kosmos XVI

if you are not careful, Trump will rain rockets down upon you...

I’ve been doing a lot of outdoor pictures of late that I have taken over the past few months. While I’ve been working on these I’ve been stewing in my mind a series of conceptual pictures that flow from the more esoteric parts of my artistic language. Part of them reflect my German heritage and my interest in imperialism as conveyed in Eastern European visual propaganda from the 30’s and 40’s. I’m exploring, I think, a sort of mental juxtaposition of these themes and how they may relate to today’s political conditions. However, I consider the pictures to be more play than commentary. Through the series I am working with consistent visual objects I’ve found in various places and mixing them with original photographs. The rocket, the buck-tank, the fiery skull-man. As usual, the viewer can draw an imaginative meaning from the symbolic nature of the pictures and titles. I will post this series on this site soon. I have no title for it yet.

Artist Statement

Exposure to graphic design and the visual motifs that often accompany architecture and its predilection for manifestos became a great influence on my artwork. I found myself striving to use these visuals as a toolset that I can use to convert images in my head into a realization of a certain idea or concept.

Classical art is beautiful and modern art in comparison is deconstructive, disgusting. I cannot express myself by classical means. I am not skilled enough. Modern art is more associative with my visual dictionary anyway. Stored somewhere in spaces in my head.

My attitude toward my art is to run with whatever inspiration strikes me. This can be as simple as photographing my immediate surroundings or manipulating past photographs into an image conducive to a current mood or idea. I think I should always try to evolve, change, go with the new. The danger here is the lack of consistent voice or motif. An idea that seemed brilliant yesterday can seem trite and unappealing today. My phone is full of ideas written on memos that seemed fantastic at the time…I may still get around to them. It’s better to at least record the idea for a visual series rather than forget it entirely. I attribute this velocity of inspirations to the info-digitized society we have created for ourselves. The friction of concept introduction has degraded to the point of hyper flux. I don’t deride this development. Like my art, it is what it is.