October 9 - 30, 2024
Running parallel to the horrific news stream of deadly serious climate disasters, opioid crisis, conspiracy cults, mob mentality, cyber attacks, and war, we have a monetized cacophony of manufactured conflict and controversy, palliative diversions, and distractions. Since the pandemic pivot to capitalize on our collective anxiety, I find that we have acclimatized and become addicted to a non-stop, hypnotically gluttonous extravaganza of overstimulation.
In response to this onslaught of infotainment and outrage, I initiated a new series of carvings deploying invented ad copy and graphics in a genre satire critique of the marketing industry at this moment of our social and environmental dystopian crossroads. This starting point evolved into extracting text fragments: one, two, and three-word poems from the swirl of topical ephemera, that point to the cognitive dissonance and suspended disbelief of contemporary doublethink.
Since almost all of our current serious-to-ridiculous problems are self-inflicted and predictable, they invite observation and dissection through the lens of parody. I started by looking at survivalism, decadence, surveillance and security, scarcity, extreme subculture clannishness, cute culture, tunnel vision, magical thinking, and the resurgence of a preoccupation with cryptozoology pseudoscience. I’m also taking inspiration from current events and extrapolating; zooming out and shrinking this moment so we can see where we are heading on the trajectory of recent and contemporary consumer culture.
These new woodcuts are carved on curved oak seatbacks salvaged from the renovation of the Martha Cohen Performing Arts Theatre. Arts Commons provided me with a truckload of this carpentry grade 12 ply oak. This gave me the opportunity to work on larger surfaces and explore more ambitious themes. I don’t make prints from my woodcuts, but paint the carvings themselves.
Over the past two decades I have explored countless specific themes and ideas in my art practice. Now I find that it is this moment that bears scrutiny, with its personal entertainment bubbles, troll farms, lunar outposts, spray tans, snail mucus facials, rabbit holes, locust protein powder, real housewives, echo chambers, rabid fandoms, and hyperbolic clickbait. At a time when there is no doubt we should be tapping the brakes, instead we are going like a bat out of hell over the cliff like cartoon supervillains.”
Reception: October 18, 2024 | 12–2 am
916 Springdale Road Building 3 #104
Austin, 78702 Texas
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