“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men
will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of
everyone.”
— John Maynard Keynes [1]
My projects focus on the metaphysical and the physical human in conflict, and the altruistic and selfish behaviors that are led by these two perceptions of self. I currently focus my research on the relationship between humanity and the material objects that define us.
Generation of material objects and tools is an essential marker of the advancement of civilization and the ongoing domestication and specialization of human goals and interests. It is through created objects that we develop cultural knowledge and refine technical skills over generations.
In my painted works, groups of humans are deeply engaged in complex environments. Each arrangement is dependent on culturally defining domestic objects that play an essential role. In each painting the domestic object or action is central and presented as a critique of the abstraction of human needs and desires within advanced civilization.
The savage etiquette of domestic space finds influence in early Modernist primitivism’s rejection of monoculture, the culture vultures of Brazil’s Anthropophagia movement, and a surrealist tendency towards the actual function of thought.
Control and regulation over natural environments is an indication of the advancement of civilization, and is utilized in my work to explore the fragmentation of human identity in globalized culture. Through the manipulation of social humans and objects within restrictive environments, I am able to explore the abstraction of physical identity as the body is further isolated from our perception of consciousness.
In each artwork, I explore the civilized human in conflict within environments that have evolved beyond their functional purposes. I attempt to explore this evolution as a natural progression and a fundamental part of human behavior—it is the same guiding instinct that leads us to domesticate plants and animals, to form communities, regulations, and surpluses.
[1] White, Randall “Representation and the Evolution of Cultural Memory” La Recherche, July 1994.