STATEMENT OF WORK

My work explores the connections between the full trajectory of human history, from ancient times to the present and future. While modern humans genetically resemble the earliest homo sapiens, knowledge passed between generations accelerates complex cultural advancements, shaping our understanding and interpretation of symbols and their meanings.

In Philadelphia, a city rich with culture and symbolism, carved stone motifs adorn historic buildings, providing both decorative and symbolic significance. I recreate these symbols using pulverized bits of printed daily news, creating pieces that appear heavy but are mostly hollow under the exterior coating of newspaper pulp. By isolating these forms, I disconnect them from their structural supports and original context, inviting reinterpretation of their symbolic encoding. Stacking these pieces in precarious groupings suggests a new, haphazard orientation that parallels the contingency of meaning itself—how cultural symbols, when severed from their origins, can be reconfigured, and their meanings can shift over time. The resulting stacks resemble ruins, fragments from a future when Philadelphia is the historic past.

My Fountain series features painted rectangular and oval shapes stacked within vertical rectangular substrates. Despite the consistent design parameters, each fountain transforms uniquely upon examination, with some resembling extraterrestrial beings and others reflecting the sky above through contrasting paint applications, creating illusions of portals to other worlds. Named collaboratively with ChatGPT and Claude 3 Opus, these paintings explore mythic springs in the age of technological exploration, drawing upon the literary and mythological symbolism of fountains as sources of life, youth, and healing.

In the tiled paintings, I split the composition into two distinct paint applications, featuring similar forms on either side. One side is painted with full color and shape, while the other consists of thick, gridded "tiles" of paint resembling mosaics or pixels. The target-like form in "Circumpoint" appears as a sun, eye or nipple on the top of the painting, but its pixelated version relates more to targets, scopes, or scientific annotation. This series highlights how the formal presentation of a motif can influence interpretation.

Through these various series, my practice bridges ancient, historical, and contemporary forms to challenge conventional perspectives on symbolism and representation, inviting viewers to engage in a nuanced exploration of the fluidity of meaning.