A BRIEF early HISTORY -(1988.9 - 1998.4)
The First 10 years Of 'Serious' Investigation: The Universe, Birth, Death, Everything In Between.
This is a history outlining a theoretical flow that is an interpretation of interconnections between universe, the body, technology, sound, psyche, the earth, transformation, poetry, birth, the womb, the 'inner-verse', chaos, paradox...
Incept date: 1988.9
the womb, birth, the aurora borealis, the moon/tide relationship, silence, erotic, pictures of/for sound, the universal, the ocean, light, optics, architecture, the lullaby, the body, science.
Phase III
Incept date: 1989.9
Focus on the life cycle, metamorphosis, the circle, geometry, the triangle, the Fresnel Lense, transparency, madness/creation relationship, ritual, periphery, the essence of ...everything, exploring paradox re: order/chaos, ...struggling to challenge/break all of my concepts of 'reality'/world/self/+ test my spirit, ...seeing emerging connectedness with image-making + alchemy ...even the process itself, was being constantly influenced by music.
Persistent colours - purple, orange, green.
Persistent number - 3
Focus on imagery referencing mother/child, and the ocean. It was now clear to me that visual thought had to be taken on from many fronts simultaneously, not just the visual, marking this period as dominated by manifestations of my ability to converse directly between intellectual process and emotional expression. I watched and interacted w/ the serendipity and interconnection of mark making and composition. Everything began to flow as one. August of 1990 I constructed what I consider to be my first painting. [ The Big Bang: Trans-Sex causality(1990) ]
Phase IV
Incept date: 1990.9
At this time my focus turned solely to sculpture. The stripping of former realities via the shifting of emotional and philosophical perspectives was now the central theme. I wanted my work to be a collaborative process. This was manifest in the group creation of a body cast. The cast was then painted red to signify the ‘emotional layer’ of my allegorical spirit, which at this time was being exposed, attacked, traumatized, somehow released. This male body cast was also pregnant (with creation), to conjure 'androgyny', reflecting the nature of emotion and intellect. With one magnifying lens ‘window’ embedded in the belly and one in the lower spine, the viewer, breaking from the gross anatomy, could get close up and peer inside to see the dimly lit womb environment. ( Menstrual Man (1990-1991) ]
The sister sculpture was a piece dealing with the rapidly advancing technological revolution going on around, on, and inside the body.
Both of these sculptures were not easy on the eyes. They were about emotional pain and suffering, and searching for release. They were about a scarred and abused world on a very personal, raw, and visceral level. At 22 years of age, I was in a process of being emotionally stripped bare, torn open, and turned inside out. Paradox, chaos, genetics, studying the microcosm and macrocosm, the theme of androgyny, word games, jigsaw puzzles; these elements were additions to a vision that was on the way to opening all ‘taps’ to create/channel/manifest the visual poetry, with no impedance.
1991. Hard at re-working the language, exploring decay, entropy, transformation, the barcode, graffiti, colours - silver + orange, the extra-terrestrial landscape, the x-ray, toilet metaphor, process of the internal organs, especially the immensely critical role of colon health ( metaphor for life and evolution), apocalypse, expressions of sexuality, the visual making of sounds, the collapse of structure into inter-dimensional space, atmospheric effects, depictions of the heart, hands, feet, and eyes. [ Aneurysm (1991)]I became increasingly focused on studying the link between animal consumption, capitalism, de-forestation, de-humanization, and the onset of physical and global breakdown.
I made a connection between the painting and my skin. Both were living breathing atmospheres; interchangeably poetic and physical. I set out to tune the canvas to express the ‘painting as living energy’...constructing a metaphor for a kind of ‘visual flesh’.[ study 1:Hybrid (1992) ]Emerging from my personal sense of the increasing disconnection of my life and mind from the world around me I sought to unite and heighten all senses attending the painting. It was a simple approach to bridging the gap between artist and audience, mind and spirit, collaborating with eyes, nose, ears, taste, and touch...
THE BOWEL MOVEMENT theory 1992.3.
In the spring of 1992 “The Bowel Movement” theory was born. It was a humorous and visceral word-play, a paradoxical expression describing the sensory bombardment of city life ( a world to which I was essentially only a visitor), and the idea of mentally and physically running a clean system; individually and as global concept. In its’ purest intent, this theory was meant as a way of absorbing, sharing, and celebrating life in an attempt to evolve toward greater sensitivity, heightened mindfulness, compassion, and greater freedom of expression, experimentation, and exploration.THE BOWEL MOVEMENT
Create a presentation primarily comprised of paintings via the gallery setting, through a collaboration (between myself and two others) to make paintings that were to be presented as made by one individual, even to go as far as creating a ‘imaginary artist’ to represent the work.All of the senses were to be attended to:
1. Aromatic food (curries) were to be cooked at opening night, and occasionally throughout the duration of the show.
2. Incense was to be burned to honor the continued expansion of perception, experimentation, vision, and risk-taking.
3. Music was to be composed for each piece.
4. Poems were to be written for and displayed near each work.
5. The artists’ studio was to be re-constructed in the gallery setting and new work was to be created there during the duration of the show.6. the paintings are available to be touched by the viewer.
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The Phoenix 1993.1
The new body of work was to be a ritual …painted, burned, scarred and cut into. I experienced a vision of a large series of bright paintings (what was to become The New Century Rhymes) for a brief moment. I began forming a connection between the process of stitching, with chance compositional structure, and the subconscious composition of the work palette. The image ‘Birth’ explored themes gravitating around transformation from the inner visual/ psychological/ philosophical world to the outside world. It made reference to blood as integral part of life force, and paradoxically, the vehicle for a virus that could kill you. With the image KUNsT, I incorporated material that glowed under ultra-violet light, adding an element to the painting that could only be experienced under proper ‘environmental’ conditions, which pulls into play the force of the screaming face/moon, the menstrual cycle, and human creation. I was reaching toward the completion of a cycle.
[(Birth (1992-3)]The First Bowel Movement Meditation & Departure From The Muse 1993.5
The first meditation on ‘The Bowel Movement theory’ was a 96x144 inch triptych. The image itself was a depiction of an explosion of history, time, technology, and the human body. After this treatment, the paintings were then used as a ground for anyone to write, scribble, paint, draw, glue, burn anything onto it that they wished. This painting is the product of my first moves toward the influences of graffiti. The strategy was to create a venue for serendipitous visual relationships to occur within an anonymous group collaboration, actualizing an additional ‘foreign’ layer of dialogue not directly attributable to my hand.
[(Your Intellect Against My Feelings)]1993.6
I began painting less and less, and writing more often, and began what became an approach to music composition that hovered between composing and channeling. I subsequently arrived at recognizing the connection to the very same processes at work in composing this music that I had previously developed in painting. Each composition began as a sketch at most. I allowed the sketch to follow an operation that provides all the space necessary to follow the subconscious flow of the equation of ideas into the wave, to surf the chaos of a game of chance with sound.
Phase V
Incept date: 1995.10
Marked by the uncannily serendipitous creation of a found object painting. I switched from contemplation to practice, to begin to incorporate the barcode, graffiti, and a chance sampling of whatever happened over the course of a day. The work discussed the depleting environment, computer screens, bank machines, bombs, missiles, the ocean, humanity’s increasing isolation from itself and the earth, the virus, and metamorphosis ...as landscape. I developed a painting that combined the electronic schematic with landscape and the body. The schematic used was that of a barcode reader, with the sister painting having a comment painted in barcode. These paintings depict the interwoven atmosphere of the mental, physical, and spiritual.
A kind of twin and more apocalyptic piece to ‘Dragonfly’ was a collection of ideas depicted as a visual-sound construction.
[ Perhaps You’re A Little Bit Too Intellectual (1997) ]The images that I was making at this time were statements about our contemporary geo-political, technological, perceptual, and virtual landscapes.
and [ Souled Out (1997-1998) ]
Early in 1998, I painted a visual interpretation of the utilization of a somewhat ‘traditional’ realism style with graffiti tagging.
[ ORT (1998 ) ]These few works from this period were essentially an effort to expand my vocabulary in the rendering of multiple inter-dimensional layers/ windows/ portals/ reflections/ and structures. ...thinking of ways to make images of simultaneous pasts, presents and futures.
In the Fall of 1998, I began to compose and recorded new music. 2 years of research began, with the next body of large work, The New Century Rhymes, in development.
Grounding 3 colour etching 5 1/2 X 8 1/2 inches 1990 |
The Big Bang: Trans-Sex Causality acrylic on canvas 30 X 48 inches 1990 |
A Temp Body, Body Temp. photocopy on panel 12 X 24 inches 1991 |
Aneurysm acrylic, rose petals on panel 48 X 72 inches 1991 |
It's Not The Art, It's The Heart carving, acrylic, on concrete on plywood 38 1/4 X 42 1/4 inches 1991 |
Menstrual Man Body Cast Armature: plaster, wood, acrylic, candles, glass, wax paper, face cast, x-ray, eucalyptus, photo slide, film projector lenses. 64 inches tall 1991 |
The Eleventh Day/ Euqilibrist metal, glass, plexi-glass, plaster, wax, acrylic, plywood, poem, rail spike, patch bay, fresnel lenses 72 X 36 X 36 inches 1990-1991 |
Birth oil, fire, wood glue, staples, on plywood 60 X 48 X 4 inches 1992-1993 |
KUNsT oil, fire, photocopy, on plywood 36 X 72 inches 1992-1993 |
study 1: Hybrid carving, bondo, glass, crayon, acrylic, graphite, on board + grass, dirt, water 12 X 24 X 8 inches 1992 |
An Old Error Is Always More Popular Than A New Truth oil on canvas 60 x 48 inches 1993 |
Your Intellect Against My Feelings oil, silver rust paint, black stain, enamel, spray paint, crayon, mirror, on panel 96 X 144 inches 1993 |
In my blood, awkward to sunshine oil on canvas 72 x 48 inches 1993 |
Dilemma: Dragonfly acrylic, diodes, silver paper, newspaper, on canvas 84 X 96 inches 1995-1996 |
Chuck, Frank, and the Atlas of Human Anatomy oil on canvas 12 x 18 inches 1996 |
Artist vs. 'Genius' spent brushes, computer mouse, acrylic, on canvas 12 X 14 X 2 inches 1995-1996 |
ORT oil on canvas upper canvas: 24 X 30 inches lower canvas:16 X 20 inches 1998 |
Perhaps You’re A Little Bit Too Intellectual acrylic, sponge, marker, on panel 27 X 48 inches1997-1998 |
Anima acrylic, marker, newspaper, on plexi-glass 27 X 38 1/2 inches 1997-1998 |
Souled Out acrylic, marker, photocopy, on canvas 34 X 54 inches 1998 |
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