Fried Gold and Patent Portraits

“Co: Modify” Culture Laboratory Collective @ Nave Museum, Victoria, TX
Dec 8, 2011 -Jan 22, 2012

2 new series developed for “Co: Modify” based on the theme of “commodification as a form of validation of life concepts.”

Part I: 

“Fried Gold: Best Idea Ever”
battered and deep fried gold plated necklaces [2011]

Anything can be made better by deep-frying it.

And nothing is better than gold.

Taking a decidedly “State Fair” approach to increasing the value of gold, the piece considers the nature of wealth as a commodity to be digested. And our efforts to increase that consumption.

Roving Galleries on Dragon St.

Students From Two Universities Take Alternative Spaces To the Design District

Dallas, TX, 11/21/2011
published by D Magazine: Front Row

Times of late seem ripe for taking to the streets, and last weekend, two Dallas-area universities did exactly that, though not in protest.

The taken street wasDragon St., that unofficial Dallas arts district, and the venue featured two moving trucks posing as art galleries. Lights ablaze, the alternative art venues signaled a cooperative stance of community inclusion by the area’s commercial galleries. Embracing these temporary venues fosters a symbiotic relationship between the local rent paying, bricks-and-mortar galleries and the fresh ideas and exploration of energetic students. Capitalizing on the sustained efforts of the gallery owners to draw a crowd, the student-initiated projects also provide the district with a quirky spectacle and infectious enthusiasm while further bolstering the already significant cluster marketing.

Attraction

Attraction
gunpowder, acrylic, gold leaf, wood_ 36″x 48″x 5″

A new direction based primarily on some architectural theory I have been reading. I have been using this pattern for a while, but more recently the idea of architectural fidelity and the space it protects/forms have become something I see as a political manifestation. I am referring to it as the “politics of the void.” (2 previous works dealing with this topic are Incursion I and II.)

I have become interested in how much effort/power it takes to stabilize vacuousness, how architecture is part of the constructed stability of space and yet, interior design and temes tend to disrupt/distract the space itself to present a more socialized view of this power discourse. Dealing not only with the forces that attract towards the void, I have attempted to symbolize the restraining architecture, essentially highlighting the warping of space by presenting stability. The singed edges of the circle are a physical manifestation of this power, at once exploding outward, expelling, as the vacuum pulls discourse ever inward. (In black holes or gravitational fields they call this edge an event horizon, where escape is impossible.)

In many ways this is about interdependance. The forms rely on each other to create a dynamic form of tension, stabilizing on their own power and continual interaction. I am simply trying to visually represent this complex set of symbiotic forces.

* Since winter 2010 I have been painting a bright color on the backside of my works. This allows for a glow of color to reflect onto the wall in order  to mingle with the shadows. It is part of “Attraction” but is also noticeable on “Fulfilling the Void“, “Disruption/Seduction“, and “Connected: Laocoon.”