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"We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will." - Chuck Palahniuk, Diary
When an animal gets hit in a city, there is no dirt left for it to decompose into. It's left there on the concrete, unmoving, a mass of fur and dark red streaks that tell the story of how exactly it died. I think this happens to more than just animals.
The idea of art as something that carries the life of the artist within it is something I intend to display brazenly in my work. There is a limited amount of time, a limited amount of physical capability and hours spent away during the day, hours of lifetime. A century isn't very long when you break it down. An artist will spend these hours in exchange for producing something that is the culmination of their lived experience and influences into one singular work. Parent and child, I treat my work like it is being born, like I am creating something that will live past me, even while I am alive. I think life is complicated. The interplay of themes of life and death inevitably creeps into my work for that very same reason.
I am very comfortable with death. I am also very comfortable with feeling ridiculous. Crawling on my knees, shoulder pressed to the floor, I assume various positions when splattering ink across my work. The spatter patterns create texture, shadow, or the suggestion of movement. I'm particular with the results. "In highschool, I took a forensic science class" is my favorite thing to tell people when they ask why I utilize spatter. When creating handmade inks, chemical reactions and ancient techniques, rubber gloves versus the mortar and pestle, I am creating blood. Ink is not a substitute for blood in my work, it is simply what it is. Transubstantiation: the conversion of the Eucharistic into the literal body and blood of Christ. My tendencies towards metaphors like this, and my comfort with death in my art, is likely due to my Catholic upbringing. You learn about death and suffering at a young age, then you're crying to God at night to never let you die because you don't want to go to Hell, and then the reverse, then you give up. Me and him have come to an understanding as artists with the progression of my work.
Decaying bodies and exposed muscle decorate the paper, not to be grotesque or violent necessarily, but to expose the structure of life. What makes a person, or an animal, or anything at all, physical. We are complex machines, and I believe that we like to forget that. Smooth skin magazines, scar removal creams, morticians for the living. All we are is muscle and bone. Harsh blacks, bright whites, gritty gradients form the figures in my charcoal works, while the ink brings it to life. Layering shifting perceptions of objects, abstracted or overly detailed at times, creates a movement that draws in the eye. If you do not stand and stare at my work for at least a single minute, you will miss something. You will see signs of my life in my art.
My work is not an advertisement, not an aestheticized cut-and-paste on the side of a skyscraper, it is a reflection of my life. Not my life in the "my trauma makes my work" way, but in the literal sense that I am shaving days off my life spending time simply working. My brain and heart guides my creation, and my body does the creating.