LET IT BE KNOWN THE LAND WAS NOT TRUE… For they let freedom ring reign like a thick metal chain.
Acrylic on wood 4x4 Ft.
ONE DAY THEY WOULD MEET HALFWAY
Acrylic, paint markers, and spray paint on canvas 3x3 ft.
Full title: "She followed her heart/He chased the paper/But (maybe) one day they would meet halfway". This piece tells the story of two lovers— creatives who were divinely connected yet pulled apart in opposite directions by a conflict of priorities. She is being drawn, heart forward, out of the material world to the point of becoming almost transparent, sacrificing materialism to transcend. He is in the clouds by her side, indicating they share a similarly inspired atmosphere… but he’s still occupying the corporal world where CREAM reigns supreme.
PANE
Acrylic, paint markers, and spray paint on canvas 4x4 ft.
The past is so bloody… but full of angels somehow.
Playing with pane and pain; here we have a girl with a brutal past banging against the glass between past and present. On the other side of the glass there are lovers running into romance without hesitation. Until the girl can break away from the remnants of shellshock, ghosts, and repeating memories that seem to make the world transparently corrupt, she cannot enjoy the freedom from fear that falling in love requires. The portal of a peaceful land breaks through the painting like a beacon of brighter days… but has the red tentacles of something sinister emerging. The apple has a worm. All of her experience has led her to believe that goodness is a sham constantly disrupted and not to be trusted.
A SKRAP IN TIME
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas 3x4 ft.
An abstracted homage to a variety pack of personal core references. New york, graffiti, the golden era of boxing, subway cars, the nighttime skyline, K. Herring, Chinatown neon, and creative advertising iconography.
AMERICA: LAND OF RIGGED OPPORTUNITY
Acrylic, paint markers, and spray paint on canvas 24x30 in.
This painting delves into the subjectivity of freedom in the United States via the ideas of commercialism, corporatism, colonialism, and militarism. The scales of justice are depicted out of balance and the traditionally blind lady justice is in this case a white blonde willfully blind woman reaching into the flames of corruption for the flying piggy bank— a symbol of wealth, cops, and the banking system; main characters of systemic disparity. At the bottom a man prays for a better life, his ascent is stifled by the things above him; the trap of hierarchy, criminalization of the poor in the (in)justice system, and the distorted narrative that simply working hard in this system magically inevitably elevates one out of rags into riches. In the right a missile leaves behind a paper trail of US currency and a malnourished child in the dust. Wealth rockets to the top at the cost of the innocent both nationally and internationally. The decorative abstracted elements on the left side allude to the voyage of refugees spanning turbulent waters and various terrain to come to the US. The cracking area with the American flag and image of a crown represent colonization and militarization and its assault on native culture, art, and property.
REAL MILK
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas 4x5 ft.
This painting depicts the relationship between real and fake via love/lust, ethics/consumerism; channeled by a theme of ripping back layers and paralleled by allusions to graffiti wherein genuinely spontaneous expression is birthed then buffed (whited out) per societal conventions. Milk is spilt liquid and not lasting real love just lust. Milk is milquetoast accommodating status quo. Milk is the facade of purity; white paint covering up raw expression and honesty leaving it temporary and censored in this commercialist society. Executed with a minimalist tongue in cheek, various contemporary commercial iconography strategically infiltrates the layers, sprinkling the work with rhetorical criticism of consumerism.